15 May 2003
A frontline member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Hajia Naja'atu Bala Mohammed, has said that there was no going back in the party's quest for justice on the disputed results of the recently concluded elections, even as she lambasted a group of traditional rulers asking Buhari to forget the election results.
Naja'atu, who is also a member of the Buhari/Okadigbo Campaign Organisation, disclosed that the organisation was heading to the courts to challenge the identified cases of electoral malpractices in 18 states of the federation.
In a VOA Hausa interview, the woman leader noted that the only way to resolve the prevailing impasse on the election results was to "do away with injustice and replace it with justice. But the greatest wrong doer is one who folded his arms while injustices prosper. That's why we contested in the first place. We shall go to court, it is part of our strategy to fight injustice."
She then chided a group of Northern traditional rulers who visited Buhari, to urge him to stand down his stance against the presidential elections.
According to Naja'atu, the traditional rulers should first identify the electoral malpractices perpetuated before trying to console Buhari, adding that there was no need for consolation if no injustice was committed.
"They should tell especially the Northerners where they were when this monumental fraud was being implemented," she said, alleging that the palaces of these traditional rulers were used in committing heinous electoral crimes.
While maintaining that Buhari's "stolen" mandate was people's mandate, Naja'atu argued that "there has never been any politician in this country who garnered as much support as Buhari did."
She further flayed the traditional rulers for advancing their personal, rather than their people's interest, "whose interest were they protecting? Is it the people's interest or their pockets? she queried.
The setting up of an interim government under the chief justice, she noted, was the best alternative available, stressing, however, that "it's not for the traditional rulers to come and say let there be an interim government so that some people will be smuggled in. No, what we are saying is that the chief justice should take over and conduct fresh elections within three months.
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