The 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has said Nigeria is the biggest loser following the recent verdict of the Supreme Court.
Atiku’s recent remark is coming about 72 hours after the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal for lacking in merit and affirmed the victory of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressive Congress as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
Recall that, in the lead judgment delivered by the Chairman of the seven-man panel, Justice Inyang Okoro, the apex court refused to consider the academic records of the President obtained from the Chicago State University, which Atiku sought to tender as fresh evidence to prove his allegation of certificate forgery against Tinubu.
The other justices on the panel-Uwani Aji, Mohammed Garba, Ibrahim Saulawa, Adamu Jauro, Abubakar Tijjani, and Emmanuel Agim, unanimously agreed with the lead judgment dismissing Atiku appeals.
Atiku who stated this in a press conference in Abuja on Monday said, “The bigger loss is not mine, but for Nigeria. If the Supreme Court implies that crime is good and should be rewarded, then Nigeria has lost. And the country is doomed irrespective who occupies the office.
“Obviously, the consequences of those decisions for the country will not end at the expiration of the current government. They will last for decades. I am absolutely sure that history will vindicate me. We now know what the Supreme Court has decided.
“At critical points in my political life, I always ignored the easy but ignoble path and chosen the difficult but dignified path, the path of truth, of morality, of democracy and rule of law.
“I always chose freedom over servitude, whatever the personal discomforts my choice entails. When I joined politics, the critical challenge was easing the military out of power so that civilian democratic governance could be restored in Nigeria. It later became a very defining struggle, and, as one of the leaders of that struggle, I was targeted for elimination.”
