The 2023 Social Democratic Party governorship candidate in Kogi State, Murtala Ajaka, has frowned upon the rulings of the court and the treatment meted out to him.
He claimed that the judiciary was taking sides with the camp of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as they constantly get information on judgement dates before the camp of the SDP.
Ajaka, through the Spokesperson for the Campaign Council, Davies Ijele, told journalists yesterday in Abuja, that “We are at the final stage of our case at the supreme court and there is been a lot of discrepancies in the rulings from the tribunal to the appeal court.
“The APC people were celebrating their victory after know the date of the judgement. As the campaign spokesperson I called our lawyer but he wasn’t aware of the judgement date.
“They were only informed on Sunday that the judgement is going to be on Monday May 27th. And the judgement went in favour of Ododo of the APC. This same applies to the Appeal court.”
He appealed to the Supreme Court not to let the same date befall the SDP again.
“We are appealing to the Supreme Court, because it’s not more than 48 hours ago they filled their defense and they are giving date for judgement to be 16th of August and already in favour of Ododo.
“We don’t want to take it for granted something is fundamentally wrong with our judiciary system, and that reminds me of the statement of the Chief Justice “that the justice in Nigeria is no longer for the common man” Justice in Nigeria is now too expensive.
“We want to let the Supreme Court know that we believe as campaign council and members of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), that they are going to uphold the rule of law and that they are not good to bastardise our case on the alter of technicalities,” he said.
He also alleged that the Kogi case is similar to that of Bayelsa and Plateau States where the court said there were not enough BIVAS to prove cases of over voting and that in their own case they ventilated over 500 BIVAS to show that there was over voting in the election.
A member of the campaign council, Danjuma Ahmadu, argued that the courts ought not to be asking for witnesses because they have all the needed data for evidences required.
“The electoral introduced Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and we were told that we won’t have issues of over voting because the BIVAS will capture accreditation and voting in real time.
“But to our surprise me he courts are still calling for witnesses when they know that most of them are afraid to come to court for fear of harassment, intimidation and possibly kidnap.
“The courts even refused witnesses appearing in mask. Which would have to some extent protected the witnesses.”
Another member of the campaign council, Isah Abdulkarim, was of the opinion that the supreme Court must redeem the judiciary. “What I want to add is that the Supreme Court must be seen to be giving justice and hope to the common man.”