It is now impossible for ordinary Nigerians to get justice anywhere because of the poor democratic credentials of President Bola Tinubu, Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), lamented on Monday.
Bemoaning the current ugly turn of events, Obi, former Governor of Anambra State, used his personal experiences to describe the decay in the nation’s polity, saying that Tinubu had practically “knocked down” both the foundation and edifice of democracy being erected by those before him since 1999.
One of the speakers at a colloquium held in honour of former Imo State Governor, Emeka Ihedioha, who was celebrating his 60th birthday at the Ladi Kwali Hall of the Abuja Continental Hotel, Obi compared his experience during his trying times as governor, and how he used the court process to get relief and the situation now under Tinubu.
At the event in which Olusegun Obasanjo, former President and Nigeria’s longest serving leader as both military Head of State and civilian President with Bishop Matthew Kukah delivering the keynote address, Obi delivered a direct attack on Tinubu’s model of governance.
Hear him: “If you look at what Bishop Kukah said, he said it’s work in progress. Let me follow my brother when he said about 1999. If you look at where we are today, they started in 1999, laid the foundation. Some people came and took it to a decking and some people were trying to raise it to the first floor.
“And some people came and knocked everything down. That’s the situation we are in now. Everything has been knocked down. Nothing works.
“I became a governor through the courts when President Obasanjo and Atiku were in government. I did not pay the court one naira. I was sitting in my house in the office and the court declared me winner. When a governor isn’t hosting them, it can’t happen in Nigeria today.”
Alluding to Tinubu’s involvement in the crisis in Rivers State, where he recently demobilised the democratic structure, by suspending Siminalayi Fubara and elected officials, he said it was completely different from his personal experience during the days of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when the likes of Obasanjo and the late Umaru Yar’Adua were in power.
His words: “When I was being impeached, the President sent people to intervene on my behalf. Ken Nnamani came, begging House people not to impeach me. Today, the President impeaches the person. So that is the thing. So, it’s collapsed. So, it’s failed. They were begging my house not to impeach me. And they were at PDP. I was in APGA. And they were begging.
“President was calling me and said, Peter, are you okay? Even when I was impeached, President Obasanjo called me and said, are you okay? Are you safe? When I got back from the court, when court eventually declared me under Andy Uba, President Yar’Adua called my phone in London and said, congrats. I said, President, can’t come back because you know if I come back, this people—he said, tell me the flight in which you’re coming back. And I told him.
“When I came in the first time, military people came to receive me at the airport. I couldn’t believe it and took me straight to him. Now the president will ask me not to come back here again. So it failed. Let’s not talk about, let’s talk about how we are going to rebuild it. It’s collapsing.”