Wikileaks: Buhari says speaker’s comments confirm his fears

By Elor Nkereuwem

March 8, 2011 07:06AM

Two parties who went to court over the 2007 presidential elections, Atiku Abubakar and Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday reacted to comments credited to Speaker Dimeji Bankole that the late president, Musa Yar’Adua, bribed Supreme Court justices to swing the judgment in his favour. While Mr. Abubakar, the candidate of the opposition Action Congress in the election, maintained that the speaker of the House of Representatives’s comment had disgraced Nigeria, Mr. Buhari, the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, said the revelation had vindicated his stand that the nation’s judiciary could not be trusted, and therefore needed a thorough overhaul.

Messrs. Atiku and Buhari were reacting to NEXT’s exclusive report yesterday based on a diplomatic cable, which detailed a two-hour conversation between Mr. Bankole and the former US ambassador to Nigeria, Robin Sanders. The speaker had, at the meeting on May 5, 2009, said he had proof that the judiciary had been bribed by Mr. Yar’Adua to retain him in power. Mr. Abubakar responded through his media aide, Garba Shehu: “As Nigerians, we don’t feel good that Nigeria is being discussed in such sordid terms in the comity of nations. It is so sad. But on our part, we have since moved beyond the court case and are looking forward to a great future.”

The media aide to Mr. Buhari, Yinka Odumakin, lamented that the general spent over four years in court as he sought redress over the results of the flawed 2003 and 2007 presidential elections. According to Mr. Odumakin, Mr. Buhari had since lost faith in the judiciary. “If he (Bankole), the number four citizen actually said so, it confirms the fear by General Buhari that it is difficult to get justice from the court when it comes to electoral matters. It is clear that the judiciary should be overhauled,” Mr. Odumakin said by telephone. Mr. Buhari, who is the presidential candidate of the Congress for progressive Change (CPC), says he will reform the judiciary if he wins the April election.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which Mr. Bankole also derided in the cable, said there was no need to pick a fight with the Speaker since he had already issued a rebuttal denying the statements credited to him.

“The man you attributed the statement to has issued a rebuttal so there is nothing left to be said,” the spokesman of the EFCC, Femi Babafemi, said.

In his rebuttal, Mr. Bankole, said the former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria lied in the report she sent to the US State Department on May 6, 2008. According to the dispatch, Mr. Bankole told Ms. Sanders that he had proof that judges of the Nigerian Supreme Court had received bribes from the late president Umaru Yar’Adua. The report also claimed that the Speaker condemned the leadership of the EFCC, saying the anti-graft agency was not “worth a penny”. But in a statement yesterday, Mr. Bankole claimed that he never had a one-on-one meeting with Ms. Sanders.

“It is a lie that Mr. Speaker had a two-hour private meeting with Ms. Sanders,” Kayode Odunaro, Mr. Bankole’s communications officer, said on his behalf. “We deny in strongest terms that Speaker Bankole ever made such allegations or statements against respected justices of the Supreme Court and the anti-corruption agency, EFCC, in any meeting with the then US Ambassador, Ms. Robin Sanders. The official meeting Ms. Sanders had with Mr. Speaker was in the presence of leadership of the House and did not last more than 20 minutes,” Mr. Odunaro said.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5681912-146/story.csp

the man should remember his promise oooo

The PDP gangsters are slowly exposing themselves! We are waiting!