In a statement issued earlier today, Mr. Zikirullahi said the senator’s acquittal was a “retrogressive judicial outcome,” adding that it was “abundantly clear that the anti-corruption crusade has been mortgaged by the band of thieving elite bent on cornering the resources of the nation, and holding down the country’s development agenda.”
The executive director of the Resource Center for Human Rights & Civic Education (CHRICED), Ibrahim M. Zikirullahi, has described the acquittal of Senate President Bukola Saraki by the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) as part of a conspiracy by Nigeria’s political elite.
In a statement issued earlier today, Mr. Zikirullahi said the senator’s acquittal was a “retrogressive judicial outcome,” adding that it was “abundantly clear that the anti-corruption crusade has been mortgaged by the band of thieving elite bent on cornering the resources of the nation, and holding down the country’s development agenda.” He demanded the immediate resignation of Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami.
The human rights activist asserted that Nigeria’s anti-graft war had been compromised “through a grand conspiracy involving corrupt actors, who cut across all the three arms of government.”
CHRICED added that the Nigerian judiciary as well as “all the pretenders in the so-called temple of justice” had failed the Nigerian people. According to Mr. Zikirullahi, the operators of Nigeria’s current judicial system were “looking the other way and allowing looters go scot-free through technicalities orchestrated by the same thieving elites,” adding that the country’s judiciary “has emptied itself of the last shred of credibility.”
The activist argued that nobody would be surprised if “if Nigerians wake to hear that the recently arrested kidnap kingpin (Evans), if brought before the courts, is asked to go home, in spite of his heinous crimes. This is the extent to which the Nigeria judiciary has sunk in aiding and abetting criminals, who in sane societies would be behind bars.”
Mr. Zikirullahi reserved scathing words for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), stating that the party had neither the strategy nor the commitment to deal “a decisive blow to the monster of corruption.”
He added: “In fact, the party has become so accommodating to the corruption that it is no longer different from the hopelessly corrupt PDP, which it replaced in 2015.
“This means the Nigerian people must begin the search for a viable alternative to the current APC contraption.”
On account of what he described as a “rape of justice,” the CHRICED spokesman demanded the immediate resignation of Mr. Malami as Nigeria’s Attorney-General and Minister for Justice. He accused the minister of incompetence, adding, “For leading the justice machine of the entire country to such an embarrassing situation, where clearly indicted felons are now routinely winning ‘victories’ over the government and by extension the people of Nigeria, it is time for Mr. Abubakar Malami to quit or get the boot.”
His statement concluded: “For the supporters of corruption, who have been busy clinking glasses and engaging in vulgar celebration of the abnormal since this rigged verdict, there is the need to make it clear that those who make justice impossible through the courts, are inviting the justice of the streets. Let it be on record that when the short-changed and serially abused people of this country eventually decide to administer justice on their own terms, those who arrogantly
think they are winning now will have no palatable stories to tell. The thieving class must know that there is also the ultimate judgment of the Almighty God, which unlike the corrupted political judgments, cannot be compromised by the likes of Saraki.”
