A former deputy national publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi Frank, on Friday, told Vice President Kashim Shettima that no man can retire the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, from the nation’s politics, except God.
Frank was reacting to a statement by Shettima where he boasted that he would “retire Atiku and teach him how to rear goats and boilers” following the ruling of the Presidential Election Petitions Court on petitions challenging the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
He said: “Shettima should know that one with God, as they say, is majority. Atiku has the majority and this is why Nigerians did not jubilate nor celebrate the pyrrhic affirmation through judicial coup orchestrated by the PEPC affirming Tinubu as the winner of the Presidential election.”
He wondered why Shettima, in gloating over what he called the predetermined and compromised PEPC verdict like a child just handed a cup of iced-cream by the mother, cannot but notice that all was quiet across Nigeria, including Lagos and Borno States, because the people knew the Justices allegedly ruled in Tinubu’s and APC’s favour notwithstanding the preponderance of hard facts and evidence adduced before them which showed that Tinubu never won the last presidential election.
He said in spite of Shettima’s unstatesman-like comment, “some of us know that Atiku and Peter Obi remain the heroes of democracy in Nigeria and Nigerians will never forget their struggle for a free, fair and transparent democratic system in the country irrespective of whether they get justice in the instant election petition case or not.”
According to him, “what happened in Nigeria on Wednesday was a judicial coup against the Nigerian state. It wasn’t justice. It was an ambush against the people.
“Shettima and his gang may celebrate a stolen mandate against the will and wishes of majority of Nigerians now, but a time will come when they will feel the impact of what transpired when the judiciary brazenly decided to jettison substance, facts and evidence adduced before them and ruled against Nigerians for their personal gain.”
Frank, who is the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) Ambassador to East Africa and Middle East, called on Shettima to apologise to Atiku and Nigerians over his unguarded statement which was “apparently borne out of crash impunity and arrogance.”
He said: “A man like Shettima who has been accused times without number of sponsorship of Boko Haram ought to be in jail right now rather than walking free without any modicum of respect for elders and with a stolen mandate.
“He ought to be begging God for forgiveness seeing the many atrocities Boko Haram has committed in the North and the attendant deaths, ruination of lives and devastation of property.”
He called on the Judiciary to use Atiku’s and Obi’s decision to approach the Supreme Court to redeem its image.
He commended Atiku for his resilience and doggedness in the pursuit of justice and in upholding the rule of law.
He said despite Atiku’s disagreement with the ruling of the Appeal Court’s Justices, the former Vice President demonstrated his abiding faith in the Nigerian judiciary by opting to subject the verdict to further scrutiny by the Supreme Court.
“Let the judiciary use the opportunity to redeem itself. Despite Nigerians have lost confidence and hope in the judicial process, they have been presented with another opportunity to either destroy Nigeria finally or write their names in gold through fearless, courageous and truthful decision.
“Atiku and Obi are doing everything possible to bring hope to Nigerians in their decision to give the judiciary a second chance as men of integrity who strongly believe in a free, fair, democratic process,” he said.
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