The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council has suspended its presidential campaign to protest the suspension of Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen.
In a statement issued and signed by Prince Uche Secondus, National Chairman of the PDP, said the action is also in solidarity with Nigerians in the party’s collective rejection of the assault against the nation’s democratic order.
Secondus described Buhari’s action as a “dangerous and brazen assault on the constitution,” the PDP Campaign Council said that there was no point in campaigning to contest in an election which very basis has been so flagrantly undermined.
In a statement, the PDP said: “The basis for this election is the democracy itself. When democracy comes under this kind of virulent attack, then the election itself becomes superfluous,” the statement said.
In addition, the PDP said: “In the first instance, we are suspending our campaign for 72 hours. It is our hope that President Buhari will listen to the voice of all lovers of democracy the world over and restore democracy in Nigeria immediately and without qualifications. At the moment, the President has effectively suspended the constitution under whose basis the elections are being contested.
“The action of President Buhari represents a constitutional breach and a direct attack on our democracy. This must never be allowed to stand, as there is no way by which democracy can survive under these autocratic tendencies.
“We call on all well-meaning Nigerians to rise in defence of democracy and save our nation from this imminent slide into tyranny.”
However, reacting the decision by the opposition party, Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, said the action is a face-saving measure, saying the PDP’s campaign never gained traction in the first instance.
Mohammed said this in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, on Saturday.
He stressed: “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.’’
“In any event, let’s ask them this question: Is there something that they know that we don’t 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,” Mohammed said.
Also speaking on the outrage of comments on Onnoghen’s suspension, Lai Mohammed said:
“For anybody who read Mr. President’s 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.
Mohammed also spoke on 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.
