BY HENRY UMORU

ABUJA-THE Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said Sunday that attempts by Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, to blackmail the party have failed.

According to PDP, CPC’s move is designed to blackmail and intimidate members of the presidential election tribunal through well orchestrated campaign of calumny to gain undue advantage in the petition it filed at the tribunal.

In a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Prof Rufai Ahmed Alkali, PDP urged CPC to apologize to Nigerians for desecrating the judiciary against the backdrop that Nigeria citizens were stunned by the silence of leaders of the CPC who have refused to make any comment more than a week after their National Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fashakin, took the judiciary to the cleaners.

It would be recalled that the Presidential Election Tribunal had summoned CPC’s spokesperson last Thursday to show cause why he should not be committed to jail over alleged contempt of court over a statement he allegedly circulated to media organisations on September 28, wherein he accused the five-man panel of Justices at the tribunal of dragging “the nation’s judiciary to the abyss.”

According to Alkali, “the PDP has been following with keen interest the show of shame involving the National Publicity Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC over the Presidential Elections’ petitions holding at the Federal Court of Appeal in Abuja.

“Earlier, we had cause to alert Nigerians of the dangerous schemes being embarked upon by the CPC in order to gain undue advantage over their case at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal. One of these was to carry out systematic and elaborate campaign of calumny, not only to disparage the judiciary but also ultimately threaten our hard won democratic system by making wild and inciting statements. This was clearly a well calculated political strategy of brinkmanship”.

“It did not, therefore, come to us as a surprise when we read the widely reported statement last week credited to the CPC spokesman where he was quoted to have described the judges of the tribunal in unprintable words.

“We were equally not surprised that over a week after the publication of the offensive statement, the CPC did not find it fit to deny or distance themselves from what iwas clearly a desecration of the judiciary.

“Just like most Nigerians, we are, therefore, amused that when Fashakin was summoned by the tribunal to show course why he should not be committed for contempt of court, instead of the CPC spokesperson to tender his unreserved apology to the judiciary, indeed to all Nigerians for this unprofessional conduct, he suddenly claimed he could not even remember making the offensive statements and he is asking for time to refresh his memory, and a lawyer to defend him! This is incredible! No wonder even the CPC lawyers at the tribunal disowned him.

“While we leave the determination of his culpability to the learned Jurists, we appeal to all those who aspire to lead this country to remember that there exist core values and institutions in our country that historically serve as safeguards of the system and must therefore not be recklessly undermined or desecrated on the altar of partisan politics.”

Prof Alkali who noted that Nigerians were waiting patiently for Fashakin to find his voice and do the right thing before the law catches up with him, said “CPC’s desperate efforts to blackmail the judiciary and gain unmerited sympathy from Nigerians have failed woefully and no amount of propaganda will change the course of history.”