BY EMMANUEL AZIKEN, Political Editor
LAGOS — Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, has bemoaned President Goodluck Jonathan’s victory at the Presidential Election Tribunal, saying it would lure people from pursuing electoral grievances outside the law courts.

Noting what it claimed was a leadership deficit in the country, CPC said it was regrettable that Nigeria could miss the opportunity of joining other African countries where democratic change in leadership had become possible.

CPC’s statement, issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, also condemned the elation that greeted the judgment, saying it was bereft of any feeling of a “hard-won victory.”

The statement followed Tuesday’s dismissal of the petition by CPC against the declaration of Jonathan as winner of the April presidential polls.

The statement read thus:

“Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, has noted the attendant elation that greeted the final judgment of the Presidential Election Tribunal by PDP and its endless retinue of acolytes in the Nigerian state.

“Ordinarily, affirmation of an electoral mandate by a court of law should evoke feelings of hard-won victory but not this one”

The reason is not far-fetched in that this is one judicial victory that came at very huge cost.”

“ First, in the build up to the final Judgment, the Nation’s Judiciary as an institution has become badly bruised without any scintilla of confidence by the Nigerian Citizenry.”

“Second, the electoral history of the Nation would need to be updated to accommodate the denigrating level of malfeasance of the electoral umpire-ship of the April 2011 Elections. It is hardly conceivable that the apathy (by the Nation’s electorate) for future elections may become too great a Price to pay.”

“Third, the decided outcome of the election petition has provided another option for ventilation of electoral grievance other than the Law Court!”

“What is pre-eminently important is the continual truncation of the quest of the Nigerian nation in establishing democratic maturity. Whilst the Ghanaian nation and lately, Zambia, have crossed the tenacious-hold-of-incumbent-at all-cost-political syndrome, Nigeria is still wallowing in the dirt of this affliction. The import of this is seen in the vain-glorious boasting by the chieftains of the ruling PDP to continue to rule for another sixty years! Does that not indicate that electoral future is very bleak?”

“Indeed, it is sad day for the Nation and a sad reminder that the perils of Leadership deficit shall afflict the Nation for more period than envisaged. This is so because if, through manipulative sleight of Executive authority on the appropriate institutions, elections continue to reflect travesties not assented to by the People; indeed, Nigeria totters.”

“As a Party, we shall continue to expand the frontiers of National interaction. We shall continue to galvanize the support of progressive people of the Nation so that true democratic culture shall be birthed.”