Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo (SAN), has said no one would lose sleep if the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, was not on the ballot in the January presidential election.
Keyamo was reacting to the judgment of the Federal High Court in Abuja, which nullified the leadership of the African Democratic Congress led by former Senate President David Mark and invalidated all decisions taken by the party under its leadership, including the emergence of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as its presidential candidate for the 2027 general elections.
Delivering judgment on Thursday in a suit instituted by former ADC Deputy National Chairman (North-East), Nafiu Bala Gombe, who challenged the process through which Mark and other members of the caretaker committee assumed control of the party, Justice Peter Lifu declared the ADC Caretaker Committee, led by the former Senate President, illegal.
The court consequently nullified the process through which the committee conducted the party’s presidential primary that produced Atiku as its presidential candidate.
In a post on his X handle, @fkeyamo, Keyamo (SAN) recalled two instances in which the judiciary ruled against the ruling party and it accepted the decisions calmly.
He cited the Supreme Court judgment that nullified David Lyon’s victory in Bayelsa State and another pronouncement by the apex court in 2019, “which stripped all the APC victorious candidates from top to bottom (Governor to House of Assembly) of their victories at the polls in Zamfara State and replaced them with the PDP candidates that all lost at the polls.”
The Aviation Minister dismissed suggestions that Atiku’s possible exclusion from the electoral process could threaten the conduct of the next general elections.
“You cannot abuse judges and blackmail the judiciary when it doesn’t go your way. Heavens will not fall if Atiku Abubakar is not on the ballot in 2027.”
[NIGERAN TRIBUNE]
