EARLIER this week, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2023 election and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, addressed the Nigerian press on important issues of governance and electoral reform. It doesn’t matter what other reasons could be behind Atiku’s press conference but it would be hard for anyone to deny that the primary motivation for it is the outcome of the Supreme Court judgement that affirmed President Bola Tinubu’s victory at the polls.
That would have been the honourable thing for him and Peter Obi to do as there can only be one president in the country at a time. Being a candidate in an election, as both were, does not confer on or make them jointsharers of the mandate already given the president. Otherwise, both Atiku, Obi or any of their supporters, may be treading a dangerous territory that could get them into trouble with the law.
We all can see the widespread immiseration of our people, the self-seeking of the legislators, the unbearable level of corruption in virtually all spheres of life. Only a credible opposition can highlight these issues to a government that may sit easy now their ‘’job is secured’’ to borrow the words of the president in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement.