Presidential Election: MURIC Reacts As Catholic Bishops Sends Warning To Supreme Court

Presidential Election: MURIC Reacts As Catholic Bishops Sends Warning To Supreme Court

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has raised objections to the warning issued by Catholic bishops to the judiciary regarding the expected appeal from opposition parties to the Supreme Court over the 2023 presidential election dispute.

Following the tribunal’s decision to uphold President Bola Tinubu’s election and dismiss the petitions filed by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, both candidates expressed their intent to challenge the tribunal’s ruling at the highest court.

In response, the Catholic bishops urged the court not to compromise the law in favor of any party. Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), conveyed this warning during the commencement of the 2023 second plenary assembly of the CBCN in Abuja on Sunday.

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However, in a statement on Tuesday, MURIC’s Executive Director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, asserted that the bishops’ stance was insincere, exhibited double standards, displayed bias against those who won the case at the tribunal, and amounted to an attempt to intimidate Supreme Court judges.

“MURIC finds the bishops’ stand on the verdict pregnant with insincerity, double standard and bias against the defendants. In particular, we find the bullying of Supreme Court judges debasing, denigrating and totally unacceptable.

“It is a manifestation of insincerity for the bishops to first reject the tribunal’s verdict and to follow it up by warning the Supreme Court judges ‘Not to bend the law in favour of anyone’. It simply means the bishops spoke with a mindset. They have a favourite. They have a candidate and what they mean is this, ‘Oh ye judges of the Supreme Court, the tribunal has ruled in favour of ‘someone’ but we have rejected it because the judges ‘adopted a dismissive approach’. We therefore warn you ahead. Your ruling will be rejected by us if it also fails to favour our candidate,” Akintola said.

He expressed astonishment that the bishops referred to a judgment document spanning over 798 pages as a ‘dismissive approach’, pointing out that the extensive document led many lawyers to nod off in court, given that it took 14 hours to deliver.

The leader of MURIC noted that as leaders, the bishops fell short in advising the opposition against engaging in cyberbullying, making threats, issuing insults, resorting to abuse, and resorting to blackmail.

“Perhaps the bishops are comfortable when judges and members of their families are threatened and when the pictures of people’s children are sent to them as threats.

“Instead of speaking out against these bohemian attitudes, the bishops decided to set bad precedent by sending a chilling warning to judges of the Supreme Court.

“For deciding to issue this jaundiced statement, and for warning the highly revered judges of the Supreme Court, the bishops have proved that they are worse than the Obidients. There is no difference between that warning and the threats issued by the Obidients.

“By issuing that warning, the bishops became impediments to a free judiciary. It is not only a tyrannical government that can be a threat to the independence of the judiciary and its freedom, a belligerent citizenry as well as any arrogant institution or group, whether social or spiritual, that proves unwilling to submit to the rule of law can equally constitute cogs in the wheel of freedom of the judiciary,” Akintola said.

He said that the bishops action is calculated to coerce the judges to make judicial pronouncements that will favour the their favourite candidate.

He said, “MURIC charges judges of the Supreme Court to ignore the veiled threat from the Catholic bishops and to confront the case brought before them with truth, strength, vigour and faith.”