A pan-ethnic pro-democracy organization, Yoruba Radical Assembly, YRA, has described the verdict delivered by the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPT, headed by Honourable Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani on Wednesday, as “victory for democracy and the entire people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
Making this remark at a media interaction in Lagos on Thursday, the Leader of the Assembly, Comrade Omolola Oriade, said nobody should heat up the polity by claiming total victory and thus gallivanting about with arrogance.
He insisted that the victory was for democracy, judiciary, and the generality of the people of Nigeria.
Oriade averred that the verdict should be seen as an invitation to all Nigerians to come together to support the President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration to put the country into good shape, where everybody, irrespective of religious biases, ethnic differences and political affiliations would operate and excel.
Oriade added, “It is when we, as individuals and a group view and own the outcome of the legal battle as our personal victory that there would be evolvement of the spirit of togetherness and friendship.”
He therefore called for total support for and loyalty to President Tinubu with a view to encouraging him to keep his eyes fixedly on the ball because to move Nigeria forward is a task that should be collectively accomplished, adding that the onerous task of nation building should be participatory and all-involving.
Giving the judiciary, especially the five erudite justices, who handled the legal exercise for their erudite disposition, high level of maturity and exhibition of patriotic statesmanship, the Assembly expressed the delight over the simplicity of the way the complex situation was handled with ease.
It added that the entire Nigerians were not left out in the commendation, as it gave them kudos for receiving the verdict in good faith and in a way that showed that Nigerians are truly brothers and sisters from same parents.
He said that the way the legal exercise was viewed as a friendly and brotherly necessity gladdened the its heart.
Recall the presidential election of February 25, in which the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, led to a litigation from two other presidential candidates who took petitions to the Presidential Election Petition Court, under the leadership of an erudite jurist, Honourable Justice Tsammani.
At the sitting of the court on Wednesday, September 6, the jurists affirmed the victory of Tinubu of the APC against the Labour Party, LP’s candidate, Mr Peter Obi and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
It was against this development that the group therefore appealed that since the verdict has tallied with INEC’s declaration of February 25, it should be accepted as victory for judiciary, democracy and the whole people of Nigeria.
