Following the Supreme Court Judgement which dismissed the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP’s suits challenging the candidacy of President-elect, Bola Tinubu, and his vice, Kashim Shettima, the outgoing Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has recalled how he defended Peter Obi’s right to complete his full term in 2005 when he ran for Governor of Anambra State.
Keyamo in a post on Twitter tagged a news article published on March 18, 2005, where he said Peter Obi must spend 4 years.
Recalled that Keyamo had earlier said in his comments after the PDP lost its case to stop the inauguration, that, “the Law is devoid of sentiments. We will continue to educate them.”
Keyamo recalled that “On March 18th, 2005, when the issue of the tenure of a Governor who retrieves his mandate through the judicial process was not settled and when Peter Obi was to be robbed of his full tenure, I went all out to defend him and insisted he must spend his four years in office based on the provisions of the Constitution, even when legendary lawyers like my late boss, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, held a different view. We continued to push this point until the Supreme Court vindicated some of us at the Bar.”
According to him, “We defended him based on our pure conviction, even when we never met him then. We have been in this business of defending our patriotic beliefs for decades, so when we see overnight keyboard ‘activists’ make all kinds of insinuations, we just snigger at them. We don’t respond. We allow them wallow in their pitiable ignorance.
“In addition to the above, when some of us dispassionately tell you that the law is devoid of the hullabaloo and sentiments on the social media space, please take it to the bank. Did you see the cases that were thrown out of the window today by various courts like we also correctly predicted? If you like, trend a hashtag from now till the Petitions are decided by the Supreme Court or bring prayer ‘warriors’ to the precincts of the court from now till the thy kingdom come, the law will take its course. Please, save your money and energy. Let the lawyers do their job.”
It would be recalled that the Federal high court, yesterday, awarded N17 million against three applicants and their lawyer in a suit seeking to stop the swearing-in of Bola Tinubu on 29 May. Delivering judgement, James Omotosho described the suit as “frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of court processes.”
Earlier on Thursday, the Court of Appeal also awarded a whopping N40 million fine against a candidate, Ambrose Owuru, in the 2019 presidential election for filing a “strange” suit in which he prayed to be sworn in as president instead of Mr Tinubu.
