- Urges judiciary to uphold justice.
Chuks Okocha in Abuja
Ahead of the judgement of the Presidential Election Tribunal this week, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday asked President Mohammadu Buhari to throw in the towel as the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has asked Nigerians to forgive the President as he has no educational qualifications to warrant him stand election in the first place.
The party said it has reviewed the video of the media interview by the Minister for Information and Culture and surmised that the President should save the judiciary and the nation further troubles by immediately throwing in the towel and vacating the presidential seat following the official admission that he (Buhari) does not possess a WAEC certificate, contrary to his claims and disposition before the law.
Addressing a press conference yesterday in Abuja, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said: “Our party mocks the Buhari Presidency for pushing out the video wherein the Minister pleaded with Nigerians to pardon President Buhari over his false WAEC certificate claims.”
He said the PDP noted the deliberate ploy of Mohammed to appeal to sentiments, seeing that Mr. President had failed to defend himself before the presidential petition tribunal.
The party berated the Buhari Presidency for believing that in pushing the video into the public space, it could influence the mind of the tribunal to bend the law after solid evidence have been presented before it against Buhari.
Ologbondiyan said: “The PDP holds that the pronouncement and appeal for pardon issued by the government’s spokesperson, who is also a lawyer, is a direct guilty plea, which cannot save President Buhari from the course of justice in this matter.
“From the official pronouncement by the Minister on a national television, it is no longer in dispute before all Nigerians that President Buhari does not possess the educational certificate he claimed in the affidavit he deposed to in his presidential nomination form.
“In this latest shenanigan, President Buhari and his handlers ought to have known that the law, which the judiciary is bound to uphold, is a respecter of no man.
“The PDP reminds President Buhari of how his Presidency vehemently applied the law in similar circumstance to remove a head of an arm of government; a situation, which renders his plea for pardon a complete nullity before the law.”
The PDP spokesman added that if the President indeed sought for pardon from Nigerians, he should do the needful by toeing the path of honour by vacating the presidential seat without further delay.
“It is disheartening that President Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) would put our nation through the troubles of legal hassles when they knew all the while that they were building something on nothing.
“The PDP therefore urges the judiciary to consider the evidence before it and rescue our nation by expediting its verdict to point, other than the justice of the matter in the presidential election petitions,” Ologbondiyan said.
He also denied that PDP went to Cambridge to discuss the President’s certificate issue, rather, he said, “it is on record that the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, has openly admitted that he went Cambridge to sort out issues concerning the President’s certificate.”
