Posted by From Jare Ilelaboye in Katsina on
All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP)'s candidate in the 2003 presidential election, Major General Muham-madu Buhari, has described the Supreme Court's judgement which threw out his complaints on the 2003 polls as a tacit endorsement of the use of violence for winning election in the country.
All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP)'s candidate in the 2003 presidential election, Major General Muham-madu Buhari, has described the Supreme Court's judgement which threw out his complaints on the 2003 polls as a tacit endorsement of the use of violence for winning election in the country.
Buhari who made the observation in Daura, Katsina state shortly after attending a rally to welcome him back home said 'whoever wants to deliver his constituency in any election in the country must have resources to raise an army and wage war.
'This is now legal and this is what we will tell our supporters, if they want to sanitize democracy in this country to elect people to represent them, then they have to prepare to shed their blood because anything short of that they can forget about democracy in the country"
Buhari had his appeal against the ruling of Presidential Election Petition Tribunal thrown out of the Supreme Court over two years after the April 19, 2003 polls.
He said since the Supreme Court has legalized Obasanjo's election as president of the country, "the court has also legalized violence, cheating and everything to win election because we have proved beyond reasonable doubt in both the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court that there was no election in more than two third of the states in the country."
Buhari said although it took the ANPP two good years to prove the case, the Supreme Court ruling has shown that in Nigeria truth does not prevail.
He said although his organisation accepted the Supreme Court judgement, it should be noted that there were killings of people in many states in the country during the election.
According to him, 'We have shown for instance that there is one spot in Benue state where 20 people were killed during the election violence in that state, in Katsina where one person was killed in Kankara, one in Kaduna, six people in Ikara. We presented all these evidence from High Court to Appeal Court and Supreme Court and in Bayelsa we brought a person whose senior brother was killed and we presented 139 witnesses. But the Supreme Court failed to admit all these lapses in their judgment." He said the ANPP will continue to play decent and clean politics despite all that had happened in court.
He said, however, the Supreme Court judgement has made him more determined to remain in politics.
On whether he would now be attending the National Council of State meetings, Buhari said he understood that the National Political Reforms Conference recommended that all ex-military leaders be banned from politics.
He said he would wait to see how the National Assembly would treat the conference recommendation on this matter before deciding whether he would want to attend the Council of State meetings.
Thousand of ANPP supporters attended the welcome rally at Daura local Government secretariat. Top party chiefs from ANPP controlled states particularly Kano, attended the rally.