PDP takes delight in maligning judges after loss, APC alleges

The All Progressives Congress on Thursday claimed the Peoples Democratic Party now takes delight in maligning and pouring invectives on the Nigerian judiciary following its loss at the 2023 general elections and post-election court cases.

This was even as the APC described the PDP as a wearied political platform that has become a liability to partisan democracy.

The APC’s derision was a reaction to an earlier press conference where the opposition party’s Acting National Chairman, Umar Damagum, alleged without any substantial evidence that the APC was plotting to use some “hugely compromised Election Petition Courts” to upturn some of its candidate’s victories.

Damagum also expressed concern that the alleged move was tailored towards a systemic ’emasculation of opposition’ and actualisation of the APC’s plan to install a one-party state in the country.

Reacting via a statement on Thursday evening, the National Publicity Secretary of APC, Felix Morka, stated that the PDP’s continued obsession with the idea of a one-party state was a hallucination its members are suffering, having failed to actualise their earlier plan to rule Nigeria for 60 years.

Morka also noted that the opposition party has developed a notoriety for ‘screaming to high heavens when court judgements are against it, but jubilantly extols verdicts by the same judiciary in its favour.’

He said, “In its morbid apprehension that it may yet lose more Governorship or National Assembly seats that it won against clear legal provisions of the Electoral Act and Constitution of the Federal Republic, the Peoples Democratic Party has continued to wage attacks calculated to disparage, denigrate and blackmail our democratic institutions, particularly the Judiciary into submission to its nefarious electoral agenda.

“What is by far more repugnant, devious and a clear and present threat to our democratic way of life is the PDP’s relentless and unjustified objurgation of our courts and judges. The PDP has maligned and poured invectives on our judges at every turn since its miserable performance in the general elections. When it is not accusing judges of bias or corruption, it is calling for the disbandment of some judicial panels. Yet, the same party has been the biggest beneficiary of the vibrancy and independence of the judiciary since the country’s return to civilian democracy in 1999.

“As a ruling party, the PDP was a reckless rolling stone of corruption and underdevelopment, now rudderless and antithetical to the idea of what an opposition party ought to be. The PDP is a liability to partisan democracy. In other democracies, opposition political parties offer answers to national important questions and provide competing visions for good governance and economic development. The PDP cannot even manage its internal affairs let alone offer valuable contributions for the good governance of our country.

“Rather than dissipate its low energy on rallying other opposition parties into a phantom coalition, the PDP may wish to undertake critical introspection, reinvent itself, if not already too late, instead of blaming the courts and others for the self-inflicted hot mess the party is in, or save our partisan democracy the embarrassment by winding down altogether.”