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Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has described the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) as a criminal arm of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) used to tarnish the image of national institutions, under the guise of representing a coalition of smaller parties.
The Buhari group also called for a curb on its activities and that of its spokesperson, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere over their consistent assault on the Supreme Court and blackmailing the Judiciary.
The BMO said in a statement signed by its Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke, that CUPP is a body led by a known PDP member bent on stoking crisis in the country on behalf of his paymasters.
“What they are doing amount to desecrating the temple of justice and they need to be stopped. We had actually raised the alarm few weeks ago about a PDP plot to intimidate and harass the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Mohammed into recusing himself from the Supreme Court panel to sit on the appeal filed by the party and its presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar.
“We said then that it was part of a new strategy concocted in Dubai; so we are not surprised to see this unguarded attack being led by a known PDP attack dog who has been unleashed to do the dirty job of ridiculing the Supreme Court.
“This was a similar ploy that played out when the Appeal Court President Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa was forced to recuse herself from the panel that heard the petition.
“It is a known fact that Ikenga Ugochinyere is a political jobber that has for years been associated with the PDP when the party was in control at the federal level but has in recent times presented himself as the spokesman of a non-existent coalition of political parties.
“Even long before the 2019 election when he got a party curiously known as Action Peoples Party (APP) registered, he had been operating on the sideline of PDP activities as one of the aides of the then-Senate President Bukola Saraki.
“It is surprising that the arrowhead of a political party that could not win even a seat in any state house of assembly has been using the so-called CUPP to give the impression of an opposition alliance against virtually every national institution.
“But we have always known that CUPP does not represent any party aside from PDP. What is of concern to us is that he has been allowed, for too long, to harass national institutions, especially the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Judiciary before and after the 2019 general elections,” the statement read.
BMO also wants the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to take a second look at the activities of Ikenga Ugochinyere who, in spite of being a lawyer, is the arrowhead of the campaign of calumny against the apex court, and by extension, the judiciary.
“We would have expected him, as a lawyer, to be circumspect but since he is a paid hack of the opposition party, he clearly has no qualms about bringing the Bar and Bench to disrepute.
“He must have violated some laid-down rules and regulations guiding the profession in his constant insult of the judiciary as well as his latest outburst against the Supreme Court in spite of a warning from the court,” the statement added.
