The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has described as a face saving measure the decision by the PDP to pull the brakes on its electioneering campaign over Justice Walter Onnoghen’s suspension, saying the PDP’s campaign never gained traction in the first instance.
\nThe Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, in a statement by the PDP National Chairman and Co-chairman of the council, Chief Uche Secondus, said it suspended campaign in protest of President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s decision to suspend the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen.
\n\u201cThe PDP Campaign Council further predicated the suspension of its campaign activities in solidarity with Nigerians in our collective rejection of the assault against our democratic order.\u201d
\n\u201cThe basis for this election is the democracy itself. When democracy comes under this kind of virulent attack, then the election itself becomes superfluous,\u201d the statement said
\nBut making light of the PDP action while responding to reporters\u2019 question in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, on Saturday, , Mohammed said: ”Which Campaign? Their campaign was over a long time ago. There is nothing to suspend. We said it that their campaign had floundered. You can now see. What they are doing now is looking for a face-saving way out of a dead and buried campaign.”
\nHe wondered why the PDP is crying more than the bereaved, and asked the opposition party whether Justice Onnoghen is one of its members.
\n\u201cAnd in any event, let\u2019s ask them this question: Is there something that they know that we don\u2019t know? Is there something between them and the suspended CJN? Otherwise, we did not see why they should suspend their campaign anyway, but I can understand that their campaign was bound to end this way,\u201d Alhaji Mohammed said.
\nHe said while Nigerians have been trooping out in large numbers wherever the President\u2019s campaign ship berths, the PDP supporters have been dwindling by the day.
\nOn the outcry by some people and organizations over Justice Onnoghen’s suspension, the Minister said it\u2019s troubling that those who are crying foul over the suspension of the CJN have actually ignored the fact that a serving Chief Justice not only amassed millions of dollars in his account, but admitted that he forgot to declare same in his Assets Declaration Form.
\n\u201cFor anybody who read Mr. President\u2019s address yesterday, two things stood out. The first is that additional evidence has just been revealed that the suspended CJN refused to declare millions of dollars in his possession. More worrisome is the fact that when the suspended CJN was confronted with the petition that he failed to declare his assets, he added that it was a mistake, that he forgot.
\n\u201cNow, I would have been a happier person if the same people who are now crying tyranny and dictatorship could really address the issue raised by the President, in his address on Friday, that addition investigations have revealed that several millions of dollars were found in the CJN’s account. And when the CJN was confronted with the original allegation, he admitted that he forgot to make full declaration, and that it was a mistake,” he said.
\nOn the constitutionality of the CJN’s suspension, he faulted those claiming that the President acted outside of the Constitution, adding that in suspending Justice Onnoghen, the President merely carried out an order of a court of competent jurisdiction directing him to suspend the Chief Justice pending the final determination of the cases against him at the Code of Conduct Tribunal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has described as a face saving measure the decision by the PDP to pull the brakes on its electioneering campaign over Justice Walter Onnoghen’s suspension, saying the PDP’s campaign never gained traction in the first instance. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}