By Emeka Alex Duru
With the verdict by the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), which upheld the February 28 election of the Muhammadu Buhari, expectations are on the President to come up with programme of activities to take Nigerians to the Next Level – a pledge he made in course of his campaigns. The verdict brought to an end a six-month legal battle embarked upon by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, seeking to upturn the declaration of Buhari as winner of the poll.
The tribunal dismissed the petition by the PDP and Atiku for failing to substantiate their petitions beyond reasonable doubt. The five-man panel led by Justice Muhammed Garba, which took the grounds of the petition one after the other, dismissed the petitions in their entirety in the unanimous judgment that lasted about eight hours. It described the issues contained in the petitions as mere allegations and lacking in probative value.
Reactions have trailed the judgement. PDP described the judgment as “provocative, barefaced subversion of justice, and a direct assault on the integrity of our nation’s justice system.” The party, in a statement by its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said it was particularly “shocked that the tribunal failed to point to justice despite the flawless evidence laid before it, showing that President Buhari was not only unqualified to contest the election but also did not score the majority of valid votes at the polls.” A member of Atiku’s legal team, Mike Ozekhome vowed that his clients would appeal the judgment.
On its part, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) hailed the judgment, saying: “It validates the decision of most Nigerians to do away with the past as expressed in their overwhelming votes in the 2019 elections.” In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Lanre Issa-Onilu, the party said: “From the outset, our party was not perturbed over the PDP and Atiku’s petition, which will go down in Nigeria’s history as the most frivolous in the history of election petition. In fact, our position has now been justified that the PDP and Atiku’s petition was a complete waste of time. In their puerile efforts, they insisted on taking the country on a circus and wild goose chase.”
Toeing similar line, Buhari described the ruling as victory for Nigerians who trooped out to overwhelmingly elect him for a second term in office. He added that with the pronouncement of the judiciary, “it is time for the country to move forward as one cohesive body, putting behind us all bickering and potential distractions over an election in which Nigerians spoke clearly and resoundingly.”
Time to move on
Buhari’s observation, approximates the mood in the country. Nothing in the last one year, has perhaps, divided Nigerians on ethnic and religious lines as the February and March general elections. In the run-up to the elections, aspersions and innuendos took the places of decency and issue-based campaigns. The result was that the voters were not presented with programmes that offered them alternatives. While Buhari promised taking Nigeria to the Next Level, Atiku pledged a restructured entity anchored on firm economic foundation. None of the two however gave precise details on how to actualize the pledges if elected.
This, perhaps, accounted for the President, not putting in place, a team to help him realise his Next Level project, till six months after his election. By the time he eventually put up a cabinet, it was more of a rehash of those he worked with in his first term, who, incidentally, Nigerians accused of not living up to expectations. The ministers were just inaugurated last month, August, with some of them, confessing not knowing much about the ministries they were posted to.
True to their confession of ignorance on their schedule, most of the Ministers are still learning the ropes. Consequently, in its first 100 days in office, the administration has little or nothing tangible to celebrate, except nebulous hypes in the media by sponsored hands and commissioned gangs in the social media. The economy, is still in the woods, statistics indicate.
After the shock of the recession in 2016—its first in over two decades, the government came up with an answer.
It launched its “Economic Recovery and Growth Plan” (ERGP) in March 2017 with a string of bold projections to turn the economy around. Data from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), however indicate that the expectations are far from being realised.
While the ERGP projected strong GDP growth rate of 4.5% in 2019, a report released in March by NBS showed the economy grew by 2.01% in the first quarter of the year—a slowdown in growth from the previous quarter. The trend, according to experts, is not faring better, six months after.
Similar shock waves resonate in other sectors in the country. The state of insecurity is still high. While the government boasts of recording gains in the fight against Boko Haram insurgency, the sect occasionally strikes, leaving in its trail, sorrow and blood. Recently, more than 35 Borno villagers returning from burial, were ambushed and killed by the insurgents. In the North West, bandits have literally taken over the states of Katsina, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kaduna, with some of the affected governors, paying ransom to secure from the rampaging gangs. In the South West, South East and South-South, kidnapping, is still on going.
Nigerians, elsewhere, are also not having it easy. In the last couple of weeks, Nigerians residing in South Africa, have been subjected to various ranges of xenophobic attacks on their persons and properties. By the last count, over 640 of them had signed up to be repatriated from the country. There are other areas such as health, poor state of education and failed infrastructure that need government’s attention, urgently.
For the President and his team therefore, the tribunal victory song, should be over or tuned down substantially. The work at hand is far more than the euphoria of the moment.
