Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), has said that fresh voters in the 2023 polls who believed that their candidate must be declared the winner are responsible for the intimidation the judiciary is facing, News About Nigeria reports.
Falana, who said this ahead of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) judgment slated for Wednesday, expressed displeasure over the unprecedented blackmail and intimation the Judiciary is facing because of the presidential election petitions.
According to him, there has been no election petition that has attracted such attention in the country since colonial rule.
Falana, therefore, charged the PEPT justices led by Justice Haruna Tsammani to not be intimidated but to give their judgement based on evidence before them and the laws guiding electoral process in Nigeria without succumbing to blackmail or intimidation.
In his words, “The judges must not be intimidated, they must give their decision regardless of blackmail or intimidations convinced that they can justify their judgment.
“That is what is required of them, to examine the evidence, apply the law and deliver a decision. One way or the other, some will lose, some will win; but those who lose in the case and are aggrieved will have another opportunity to approach the Supreme Court and demonstrate how the Court of Appeal has erred. So, what is the basis for the cheap blackmail that is going on?” Falana queried.
Recall that the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu announced Bola Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 Presidential Polls on the 1st of March, 2023 which led opposition parties to file petitions against his party, All Progressives Congress (APC).
