Nigerians Lost the Case, not Me – Atiku

Atiku Abubakar, the flagbearer of the People’s Democratic Party in the February 25, 2023 general elections said that Nigeria is a doomed nation in a World Press Conference on the Presidential Election Petition Judgement at the PDP Headquarters in Abuja on Monday, 30th October, 2023.

He made this known about 72 hours Supreme Court dismissed the appeal for lacking in merit and declared President Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the February presidential election.

The Chairman of the seven-man panel, Justice Inyang Okoro, of the apex court in ruling refused to consider Atiku’s fresh evidence to prove his allegation of certificate forgery against President Tinubu.

All other justices on the panel such as Uwani Aji, Mohammed Garba, Ibrahim Saulawa, Adamu Jauro, Abubakar Tijjani, and Emmanuel Agim, agreed with Justice Okoro to dismiss Atiku’s appeals.

However, the former vice president Atiku, on Monday while speaking during an ongoing press conference in Abuja, disclosed that Nigerians are the bigger losers of the court verdict, not him.

Details of the press release state:
“Someone asked me what I would do if I lost my election petition appeal at the Supreme Court. In response, I said that as long as Nigeria wins, the struggle would have been worth the while. By that, I meant that the bigger loss would not be mine but Nigeria’s if the Supreme Court legitimizes illegality, including forgery, identity theft, and perjury.

If the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, implies by its judgment that crime is good and should be rewarded, then Nigeria has lost and the country is doomed irrespective of who occupies the Presidential seat. If the Supreme Court decides that the Electoral umpire, INEC, can tell the public one thing and then do something else in order to reach a corruptly predetermined outcome, then there is really no hope for the country’s democracy and electoral politics.

Obviously, the consequences of those decisions for the country will not end at the expiration of the current government. They will last for decades. I am absolutely sure that history will vindicate me. We now know what the Supreme Court has decided.

At critical points in my political life, I always ignored the easy but ignoble path and chosen the difficult but dignified path, the path of truth, of morality, of democracy and rule of law.

I always chose freedom over servitude, whatever the personal discomforts my choice entails. When I joined politics, the critical challenge was easing the military out of power so that civilian democratic governance could be restored in Nigeria. It later became a very defining struggle, and, as one of the leaders of that struggle, I was targeted for elimination.

In one incident, nine policemen guarding my home in Kaduna were murdered in an attempt to assassinate me. I was also forced into exile for nine (9) months. In addition, my interest in a logistics company that I co-owned was confiscated and given to friends of the military government. As Vice President in the civilian government that succeeded the military, I, again at great personal cost, chose to oppose the extension of the tenure of the government beyond the two four-year terms enshrined in our constitution.

In response to the official backlash against me, I instituted several cases in the courts, which led to seven landmark decisions that helped to deepen our democracy and rule of law. At the current historic moment, the easier option for me would have been to fold up and retreat after the mandate banditry perpetrated by the APC and INEC.

But I went to the Nigerian courts to seek redress. I even went to an American court to help with unravelling what our state institutions charged with such responsibilities were unwilling or unable to do, including unravelling the qualifying academic records of the person sworn in as our President and by implication, hopefully who he really is.

I offered that evidence procured with the assistance of the American Court to our Supreme Court to help it to do justice in this case. I give this background to underscore that what we are currently dealing with is bigger than one or two presidential elections and is certainly bigger than Atiku Abubakar. It is not about me; it is about our country, Nigeria. It is about the kind of society we want to leave for the next generation and what kind of example we want to set for our children and their children”. He concluded.