Stop persecuting the judiciary, Secondus advises Buhari

*Says executive arm stinks of corruption

Tunde Opalana, Abuja

National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to look inwards at the executive arm of government and stop the hostility and ill- treatment of the nation’s judiciary.

Speaking against the backdrop of President Buhari’s statement on the former Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Walter Onnoghen on Tuesday while hosting some Yoruba leaders at the Aso Villa, Prince Secondus said that the President’s aversion for the judiciary is becoming very apparent, dangerous and antithetical to democratic norms.

He said the President has continued to bemoan his past with the judiciary by displaying his unconcealed anger and unforgiving desire to take a pound of flesh from them.

The PDP national chairman remarked that the motive behind the endless attacks on the judiciary by the President, especially last Tuesday’s narration of his so called ordeal with the courts is strategically designed to cow them into submission to accept his undemocratic desires.

In a statement from his media aide on Thursday, Secondus said that even among Buhari’s audience where he was lampooning the judiciary were persons whose questionable source of wealth is not unknown yet he pretends not to be aware because it favours his political interest.

“We all know it as a fact that the motive of the President in his countless berating of the judiciary at the slightest moment is deliberately designed to frighten them, take away their confidence and force them to submit to his wishes by intimidation,” he submitted.

Prince Secondus described as preposterous and highly unacceptable the continuous ridiculing of a highly revered arm of government just because they did not dance to the President’s selfish tune at some point.

He then urged all lovers of democracy in the country to rise up in defence of the judiciary which gets bashed from an executive arm that seeks absolute power from the back door.

The PDP helmsman noted that “the double standards apparent in the administration of President Buhari comes glaringly when he ceaselessly berates the judiciary and turns a blind eye to the monumental corruption going on in the executive arm.”

He then charged members of the judiciary never to abdicate their responsibilities in the sustenance of democracy and should refuse to be intimidated, but insist on delivering justice in the land knowing that it is the only route to growth and development.