As Nigerians, with bated breath, await the pronouncement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) on the cases bordering on the presidential election held on February 25, 2023, Matthew Hassan Kukah, a bishop, has urged citizens never again allow the judiciary to interfere in the country’s elections. Kukah made the call in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay.
Reacting to a question on his expectation from the Tribunal as it delivers its judgment Wednesday, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto said: “We must learn to exhaust these rules and processes that we have set for ourselves by force of law. We have come to this moment of, ‘All eyes on the judiciary.’ It is marked by anxiety and hope and this is good because, at the same time, it is a measure of how important the judiciary is to us.
“I hope this will be the last time we will have to rely on the Judiciary to interfere in our elections. We must amend the law to correct this injustice and insist that officials are sworn in at the end of the processes.”
Kukah, who recently deplored the state of the nation in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State capital, during the colloquium organised to mark Afe Babalola’s 60th year at the bar, also said in the interview: “How do you know when justice has been delivered? As it is with elections, the elections we call corrupt and cry foul are always the ones our party or candidate did not win.
“When our party or candidate wins, then the process is just and fair. It is only then too the elections are clean and the process transparent! In my humble view, getting used to the discipline of accepting outcomes of processes is fundamental to how the future will look for us.”
On the removal of petrol subsidy and the controversy arising from the palliatives announced by government, Kukah, a member of the National Peace Accord, said that the President should have thought through the process before making the announcement.
According to him, “Prior to the decisions of subsidy removal, palliatives and other reforms, the government ought to have spent time, professionally created scenarios, imagining actions, reactions, moves and counter-moves from winners and losers, praise singers and saboteurs. In the end, as public policy processes go, you do not have to play catch up, trying to say, this was what I meant to say after a policy has been articulated.”
He noted that “the crushing poverty and the anxiety arising from this have overrun whatever good intentions the President may have had. The quality of communication left so much to be desired in this matter. The President did not cover his back because he should have learnt from his predecessors. President Obasanjo put aside some 60 or so billions for poverty alleviation, others have done the same, but the bureaucracy turned it all into a sewage of corruption.
“After the last disastrous outing, palliatives have a bad name as a policy. It all just seemed like an afterthought.”
Watch out for the interview later…
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