23rd May, 2012
The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria has said the continued procrastination of President Goodluck Jonathan in re-instating the suspended President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, weeks after the National Judicial Commission, NJC, recommended his reinstatement, has proved beyond all doubts the level the Jonathan government and his PDP can go in rubbishing critical institutions to satisfy their selfish interests.
The party says that the manner the country is being forced to live with the amoral interests of the PDP by the present Jonathan government will certainly weaken democracy and will threaten the present democratic process if nothing is done to check this ugly situation.
In a release in Lagos, signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Joe Igbokwe, the party says that the present conspiratorial silence the presidency has maintained over the reinstatement of Salami confirms the well expressed sentiment of a wide spectrum of Nigerians that Jonathan was executing a narrow, primitive and self serving PDP interest in witch-hunting Salami for refusing to serve the political interests of the PDP.
It warns that the nation risks severe calamities if the present flippant subjugation of national institutions for the petty interest of Jonathan and his PDP is allowed to continue.
“The joke on the filthy and reprehensible manner Salami was quickly suspended when he was handling a critical presidential election petition, is on this presidency and its embarrassing litany of hatchet men who deign no scruples destroying vital and critical institutions in their quest for illicit power.
“That Salami was replaced by a pliant judge who quickly offered comfort to the PDP and its government in the charade of adjudications that followed the systematically rigged April 2011 presidential election was proof that the PDP has reached a bestial height in its primitive quest for irresponsible power.
” In a situation where the presidency has become so brazenly partisan and so consumed by the pursuit of the selfish and narrow interests of the PDP and placing that above the interest of the country, it is only a matter of time before he crashes the entire system on us all and the earlier this is checkmated, the better for all of us.”
ACN further stated: “We recall that Salami became a target of the cult of election riggers and power mongers in the PDP when he delivered well commended judgments in the Osun and Ekiti state governorship contests which freed the PDP of the stolen mandates it had been welding in those states.
“We remember that he has become the target of shameless buccaneers in both states who easily mobilised the hierarchy of the PDP as well as an easily impressionable and malleable presidency to take up a partisan fight against Salami. When his high judicial integrity was seen as a threat to the sustenance of the bagful of forgeries that was passed as the 2011 presidential election result, he was quickly removed through a universally condemned brutal tactics and was quickly suspended by a handpicked judge who quickly went to work and removed every obstacle on the way of the PDP in the tribunals.
“We recall that the country rose in one unified voice to condemn the vile acts of the PDP but the party and the presidency that was too eager to act as PDP’s battle axe stood their ground. We recall that the purported NJC suspension of Salami was done on a Thursday and that the next Sunday, barely three days after, the presidency, purporting to act on the recommendation, suspended Salami.
“The same NJC has recommended for Salami’s reinstatement and weeks after, the same presidency has been indulging in shameful hide and seek to frustrate this recommendation, in deference to the jejune interest of the PDP. We want to state that no presidency in the history of the country, perhaps with the possible exception of an equally beguiled Obasanjo presidency, has so recklessly subjected the interest of Nigerians to such awful partisan ends as the Jonathan government is doing. No government has demonstrated such amoral attitude to critical state issues and vital institutions.
“While we call for the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of Salami, we want to draw the attention of Nigerians to the fact that a group of people that never fought for nor offered any support for the democracy that is being serially abused at present are hell bent on scuttling this democracy as a consequence of their rabid pursuit of interests that benefit only them and their cronies.
“We warn Nigerians that democracy is being clearly endangered and eroded by those who easily adapt to any contraption in place because they have no qualms vacillating towards just any government in power. We warn Nigerians that eternal vigilance is the price they have to pay for their freedom and we must send a clear signal to those that are now taking our interest and critical institutions to contempt for their burgeoning selfish reasons that enough is indeed enough.”