Donned in Babanringa, his hands in the air like one clapping, Atiku Abubakar’s mien melted in a smile. Above this picture in the Daily Trust of May 24, 2019, the then Adamawa chieftain sat beneath a headline that read, “Justice has prevailed in Zamfara.”
He had issued a statement signed by his song writer, Paul Ibe, espousing and praising the Supreme Court verdict that ousted all APC elected officers in the 2019 elections. They had conducted illegal primaries and the law did not forgive them. Led by their governorship candidate, Muktar Idris, all of the candidates’ joys turned to ashes, including members of the National Assembly and the state house of assembly. Atiku’s joy was full.
Today, Atiku insists he must smile for committing the same sins. It was right to stop someone for an illegal primary in 2019. For Atiku and his followers, it is right to do the opposite in 2026. The only difference is that the perpetrator is Atiku Abubakar, and he is above the law.
Hear what Atiku said through is mouthpiece, “Nothing is as pleasing to the ears of believers, as justice being served in the holy month of Ramadan.” It was what Germans call Schadenfreude, which means gloating at the misery of others. It was a very unislamic character, but he appropriated faith for political revenge. He distorted piety. He was not done. He sang on, “God first, Nigeria second, must be the priority as trustees of the people. When justice prevails, the people rejoice, chains are broken, freedom is multiplied and society is enriched.”
Here is how Daily Trust reported it in part, “Justice Paul Galinji, in delivering the lead judgement in Abuja held that the APC and all its candidates that participated in the elections gate-crashed, having not conducted lawful primaries.”
What, then, is different with the high court verdict dissolving the David Mark-led ADC executives and, by implication, the candidacy of Atiku Abubakar?
So, this essayist is asking the ADC point man, is he ready to invoke the purity of Ramadan? Or is justice only good during Ramadan? It is what W.B. Yeats describes as a terrible beauty. The terrible thing is that this essayist warned a number of times that this day would come. But they did not have the ears to see or the eyes to hear. They believed in the justice of the murderer, the right of the interloper, the perversion of the gangster.
ADC was, in the local song, “trouble sleep, yanga go wake am.” Fela asked, “wetin e dey find? Wahala e dey find. Wahala e go geti o.” These PDP refugees led by Atiku were looking for shelter. ADC was in a quiet storm. It had nothing to do with mainstream politics. Hence, it was a trouble asleep. They had a little tiff between Nwosu,who was overstaying his welcome as party leader, and Nafiu Gombe, who wanted the rule of law and party constitution to prevail.
Enter Mark and his cohorts, and suddenly ADC was not an outlier. Before then, they tried other contraptions. They went to SDP, with Malam El Rufai, and they hounded him out like a rodent. They wanted to form a party; they came up with ADA. It was a parody of a party. A party with that name already existed. No imagination.
So, they did not know how to form a party. They did not know how to negotiate with an existing one. They were a bacillus of billionaires without a shelter. They could not build a house. So, their next auction was to use their power. They did not eject a tenant. They uprooted a landlord. They barreled into ADC, swept out the leaders and they became the owners. No conscience. No regard for order. There was uproar from even the state chairmen. They did not heed them. They overran the owners like courtiers of impunity. It was a bandit takeover.
They thought they had the men to win. All they needed was an SPV. A Hobbesian coup. Their leader gave us that word SPV. He championed it.
When Gombe went to court, there was a story that he resisted to be suborned. The matter ran its course in the court and the Supreme Court asked them to follow procedure. So, it went straight back to the federal high court when the substantive issue was raised and adjudicated. The ruling is clear. The David Mark-led executives were illegal and everything it did, including conducting a primary, was against the party’s rule. More importantly, it violated the electoral law and the Nigerian bible, the constitution.
I would want nothing else but to see the three musketeers go at it again this cycle as we witnessed in 2023 polls. Some have argued that it endangers our democracy. It shrinks the political space. Tinubu does not want Atiku in the sweepstakes. But we must ask, as Shakespeare’s Shylock asked in his Merchant of Venice: Is it the law? More potent is the challenge, are we ready to excuse brigandage as candidacy in one case, and punish it in others? Will it be a good precedent? If we excused Zamfara, we might have opened the door of impunity. But the Supreme Court did otherwise. We should not forget that the same happened in Bayelsa’s guber race that threw up Governor Douye Diri. Mattawale benefited from the fall of Muktar Idris. If it was not good for Idris, then is Atiku’s blood bluer than Idris’? AccessServices
Are we going to paper over legal cracks or cauterise a sore?
To forge on in denial or attack the vermin?
Is there a lacuna for Atiku and company? We shall see. Failing that, Atiku would be a great disaster for the rule of law. At the bottom is whether we are ready to break the law to make a man.
If he and his cohorts broke the law, the heavens will not fall if he is out of the ticket. In fact, it ennobles our democracy. It will upend Greek playwright Euripides’ assertion that “justice is a name, not a fact.”
NOTE: Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Theliberationnews
