President Buhari’s Nigeria@60 Speech draw commendations
By Victor Ofure Osehobo, Benin
President Muhammadu Buhari’s National broadcast at the nation’s 60th Independence anniversary has drawn the applause of politicians and Lawyers in Edo state.
Chief Dan Orbih, South-South zonal Vice Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Chris Azebamwen, Edo State Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Mr Razak Isenalumhe, former chairman, Benin branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) described the President’s statement as wholesome.
Orbih said the president must prevail on members of his party, APC, to learn to accept the people’s will instead of using courts to subvert elections that have been concluded by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“I think, he should really speak to members of his party (APC) who have resorted to using courts to be conducting every concluded elections.
“With this statement coming from the president, we do hope in future that the defeated APC candidate will learn to respect the verdict of the people in future elections rather than turning courts into polling booths”,he said.
On his part, Mr Chris Azebamwen, Edo State Publicity Secretary of APC, said it is only a free, fair and credible elections can represent the will of the electorate.
He contended that a candidate in an election may not want the results of an election to be compromised if it favors him noting that there are a lot of flaws in the Electoral Act that need to be corrected.
“For Instance, in the last governorship election in Bayelsa state, the APC candidate won the election that was widely adjudged to be free, fair and credible. But the opposition party exploited the technicalities in the electoral act that there were irregularities in the governorship candidate’s running mate declaration of name”.
Noting that the president’s speech affects all politicians across the political divide, he called on the judiciary not to allow themselves to be used to truncate any electoral process acclaimed to be free, fair and credible.
For Mr Razak Isenalumhe, the establishment of a system for monitoring judiciary officers involved in handling electoral cases in court has become necessary adding that it is only desperate politicians who resort to attempting compromising the judiciary.
