PDP blasts Tinubu over comments on Salami
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
By: TAIWO AMODU, Abuja
Date: Tue, 05/29/2012 –
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday reacted to the comments of former Lagos State governor and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, over his aversion to Federal Government’s refusal to reinstate suspended former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami. The National Judicial Commission, (NJC) had advised that Justice Salami be reinstated, but the Presidency insisted that it could not do so, against the backdrop of pending litigations.
Tinubu, in a statement widely reported by the dailies yesterday, had lambasted the PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan for taking a position which he claimed was aimed at undermining democracy and the judiciary.
But reacting yesterday in a statement, National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Olisa Metuh, accused Tinubu of crying wolves where there is none over the Justice Salami matter. He accused Tinubu and ACN of desperation.
“The desperation of the Action Congress of Nigeria which peaked today with an unreflecting statement from its leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, amounts to a frontal attack on both the President and our great party and is further confirmation that ACN has a different agenda in the Justice Salami saga than its touted role as an evangelist of the rule of law.
For Tinubu to describe as a coup on the rule of law, the engagement of due process in the resolution of Justice Salami’s re-instatement, sketches a graphic effigy of a hypocrite in a desperate agenda to re-shape facts.
“This level of desperation raises a gigantic question mark on the sincerity of the ACN and the integrity of its leadership especially in the background of insinuations that four states were delivered to the party via judgments that were ‘more political than legal’ to use Tinubu’s very words.
“We therefore, insist that it is high time Tinubu tell Nigerians his political relationship with Justice Salami that had driven him and his party to cry more than the bereaved.” “The Salami case,” PDP insisted, “is purely a legal issue which Tinubu is least qualified to delve into.”
Metuh said: “Justice Salami can only be reinstated when all pending cases relevant to the matter are fully resolved, and therefore, we expect a measure of decorum from all parties, except for those bent on attacking the President to score cheap political goals or politicizing the issue in order to demonize the ruling party”.
“When Tinubu harps on the rule of law, one is quick to ask why he was slumbering away while the Lagos ACN government state threw the law to the dogs in disengaging the striking Lagos doctors; an issue that is threatening to boil over to other states. Is Tinubu playing Nero?” “Can Tinubu recall how many Nigerians were brutalized and maimed by the security agents brought out by the Lagos State Government to quell the Leki Toll Gate protest? Was that the rule of law?”
