Atiku Could Have Used Boko Haram Terrorists To Destabilise Nigeria After Presidential Election — Showunmi

A former spokesperson of the Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation, Segun Showunmi, has said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Atiku Abubakar, could have used violence to destabilise the country after the polls.

Showunmi spoke to journalists in Abuja on Sunday ahead of the verdict of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.

Atiku is challenging President Bola Tinubu’s election before the tribunal, which haa reserved judgment on separate petitions filed by the PDP candidate, Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).

Insisting that the PDP candidate won the presidential election, Showunmi said rather than resorting to violence, Atiku opted to go to court to express his grievances after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the poll.

According to Showunmi, Atiku decided to go to court because he is a democrat.

“The only thing Atiku has done is that he has chosen to remain a democrat. You don’t expect a Fulani man not to be able to find Boko Haramists, killers to destabilise things. Not doing it is because he is a democrat,” Showunmi said.

He condemned the removal of the ‘All eyes on the judiciary’ billboards erected across the country ahead of the verdict of the presidential election tribunal by the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON).

ARCON, which also dissolved the Advertising Standard Panel (ASP) for allegedly erring in approving the erection of the billboards, said the advertisement is a blackmail against the Nigerian Judiciary and members of the presidential election tribunal, who are expected to discharge their functions without fear or favour.

Commenting on the development, Showunmi noted that the entire world is waiting for the verdict of the tribunal.

He said, “The entire world and even the ancestors that have gone are eagerly awaiting this judgment.

“Sometimes, the judiciary has a mediating responsibility to stabilise the society. But the judiciary cannot stabilise the society against the perception by the generality of the people of that society.

“If it is the general opinion of the people that something is fundamentally wrong, the judiciary has a duty to let the society understand that it is not called the last bastion of all persons for no reason.

“The only thing they can do not to stand against God is to rule in the best interest of their conscience and the mortality of their judgment because it will be quoted in the course of time.

“The entire world is looking at Nigeria and they are not going to be ashamed to do the right thing. If democracy fails, we can patch it up with the judiciary but if the judiciary fails, that society has failed.”

Showunmi, in the same vein, suggested that democracy is under threat in several West African countries because the judiciary failed to uphold the will of the people.

“We should let the judiciary know that if democracy is failing all around us in Mali, Niger Republic, Burkina Faso and Guinea among others, it is because people are beginning to feel that there is no rescue anywhere for their will.

“Normally, it is the judiciary that is supposed to rescue the will of the people.”