Posted by By Ademola Adeyemo on
Lagos lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi has described the 2007elections as most controversial and dubious in the history of Nigeria.
Lagos lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi has described the 2007elections as most controversial and dubious in the history of Nigeria. Fawehinmi in a press statement in Lagos yesterday however urged aggrieved parties to approach the election tribunals set up to look into the election petitions for remedy.
The Human rights lawyer also attributed the fraud that characterised the 2007 elections to the failure on the part of government to punish highly corrupt public officers at both the federal and state levels.
"Since 1999, our political leaders have taken umbrage under the immunity clause of the constitution under Section 308 to render ineffective the express provisions of Section 15(5) which emphatically abhors all corrupt practices and abuse of power"
"Since these political chief executives cannot be removed from office, however corrupt they can be, they have become so swollen headed in their brigandage; so daring and diabolical in their dictatorial use of power and so shameless in their ungodliness"
However Fawehinmi appealed to the election petition tribunal members to be courageous in their assignments and shun corruption and any form of inducements so that they can dispense justice dispassionately no matter whose ox is gored,
He warned that the kind of judicial corruption that characterised the 2003 election petitions tribunal must not be allowed this time.
Said he "The tribunals should also bear in mind that there are two sets of people who were unconstitutionally injured during the electoral robbery. First, the voters, the second set of injured Nigerians are those who contested but were robbed of victory "
"Let it go down in history that the judiciary through its tribunals in 2007 courageously and honestly right the wrongs inflicted on the electorate of Nigeria during the most fraudulent polls in the nation's history", he said.