Oyegun’s call for probe of Supreme Court reckless, Okupe says

A former Senior Special Assistant to former President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, has taken a swipe at the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, over his comments on the Supreme Court’s judgment that upheld the election of Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, describing it as reckless and influenced by financial considerations.

Blaming politicians for allowing the courts to decide the choice of political leaders after allowing thuggery and security forces to undermine the electoral process, Okupe warned against undermining the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court justices.

It will be recalled that Odigie-Oyegun had condemned the Supreme Court judgment on Rivers State, when APC stakehokders from the state visited him, saying there is something fundamentally wrong with it.

Read also: S’Court verdicts: Oyegun weeps over loss of oil rich states

Okupe said: “The recent call by Chief John Oyegun the chairman of the APC asking for the probe of the Supreme Court Judges is a very sad development in our Political History.

“All men of virtue and goodwill should rise and condemn this extreme partisanship and flagrant display of political recklessness”, the former presidential aide said in a Facebook post.

Continuing, Okupe said ‘ I do not speak as a PDP stalwart but as a patriotic citizen of this country and a stakeholder in the Nigerian project. Politicians will come and go, just as my party the PDP and the Governments it established have come and gone, after holding sway for 16years. But our country has remained and shall continue to remain. Hence we cannot and should not standby and allow transient office holders desecrate our hallowed institutions by bringing them to disrepute and public ridicle.

“Chief Oyegun had lamented that “All the highly resourceful States have gone to the PDP” and he subsequently threatened to take the matter up on behalf of his APC members from Rivers state With the president.
While Chief Oyegun in his parochial and mercantile political effusion is beclouded by financial considerations, the respected Judges of the Supreme Court must adjudicate on the principles of Law, Equity and Justice.

“Chief Oyegun and indeed all of us politicians are to be blamed for undermining the credibility of the electoral process leading to a situation where virtually nearly all elections are not only contested but frivolously pursued to the Supreme Court. Instead of educating our supporters and voters on appropriate civil, honest and disciplined behaviour on election days, we use money, thuggery and security forces to wantonly perverse and undermine the electoral process. By so doing, we directly and inadvertently transfer the power to choose political leaders, from the people, to the Law Courts”.

He insisted that desecration and defamation of the nation’s judicial institutions in the public can only lead to hopelessness, unlawful self help and anarchy.

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