A civil rights organisation, Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, has described as disturbing, \u201ca slew of verdicts and disturbing trend in the judicial pronouncements\u201d on state governorship elections by the Supreme Court. <\/p>\n
The TMG also described the Supreme Court judgments as \u201cclear cut attempts at legalising electoral robberies.\u201d<\/p>\n
A statement by the Chairman of TMG, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, said the court \u201chas elected to give judgments, and not justice,\u201d stating that in the face of unrepentant attempts to subvert the will of the people in a good number of the cases, the Supreme Court has curiously turned a blind eye to justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it is absolutely shocking that the Supreme Court has decided to act as if it exists in another planet. The TMG is perturbed by the strange legal reasoning that has informed the blank cheque that the court has given to election riggers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe make bold to say that while the legal premise behind these judgments is best known to the apex court, the open reward for electoral impunity does not resonate with the Nigerian people.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the foremost election observation coalition in the country, we see the Supreme Court judgments as clear cut attempts at legalising electoral robberies. These judgments, particularly on Rivers and Akwa Ibom States, have merely given judicial imprimatur to the damaging mind set of rapacious politicians who would stop at nothing in their bid to subvert the will of the people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat these judgments what they have effectively done is to ridicule Nigeria in the eyes of the international community, while diminishing our country\u2019s stature in the comity of lovers of democracy around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cPainfully, the biggest losers are the ordinary people in the states who have been denied their democratic choices on account of the violence and impunity that characterised the polls in those states.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, what the Supreme Court has succeeded in doing is to spit on the graves of all those innocent Nigerians who lost their lives as a result of the activities of those hell bent on subverting the will of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The TMG, while acknowledging the scores of Nigerians whose lives were cut short by the activities of election riggers, said it took solace in \u201cthe fact that even beyond the justice of the Supreme Court; there is the justice of the Almighty\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd in due course, those who wilfully killed and maimed in the desperate bid to capture power, would be held to account,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
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