Presidential poll: Ignore veiled threat from Catholic bishops, MURIC tells Supreme Court

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has faulted the warning that Catholic bishops  issued to the judiciary over the appeal that opposition parties are about to file at the Supreme Court on the 2023 presidential election dispute.

The tribunal had upheld the election of President Bola Tinubu, striking out the petitions filed by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of Labour Party.

Both men have announced their intention to challenge the tribunal verdict at the apex court.

Reacting to this, the Catholic bishops asked the court not to bend the law in favour of anyone.

President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, gave the warning during the opening ceremony of the 2023 second plenary assembly of the CBCN in Abuja on Sunday.

However on Tuesday in a statement, MURIC Executive Director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, said the bishops were insincere, double-speaking, bias against those who won the case at the tribunal and bullying of Supreme Court judges.

“MURIC finds the bishops’ stand on the verdict pregnant with insincerity, double standard and bias against the defendants. In particular, we find the bullying of Supreme Court judges debasing, denigrating and totally unacceptable.

“It is a manifestation of insincerity for the bishops to first reject the tribunal’s verdict and to follow it up by warning the Supreme Court judges ‘Not to bend the law in favour of anyone’. It simply means the bishops spoke with a mindset. They have a favourite. They have a candidate and what they mean is this, ‘Oh ye judges of the Supreme Court, the tribunal has ruled in favour of ‘someone’ but we have rejected it because the judges ‘adopted a dismissive approach’. We therefore warn you ahead. Your ruling will be rejected by us if it also fails to favour our candidate,” Akintola said.

He expressed surprise that the bishops described a judgement document of over 798 pages as ‘dismissive approach’ and that the voluminous document got many of the lawyers sleeping in court as it took 14 hours to deliver.

The MURIC boss said that as leaders the bishops failed to advise the opposition against cyber bullying, threats, insults, abuses and blackmail.

“Perhaps the bishops are comfortable when judges and members of their families are threatened and when the pictures of people’s children are sent to them as threats.

“Instead of speaking out against these bohemian attitudes, the bishops decided to set bad precedent by sending a chilling warning to judges of the Supreme Court.

“For deciding to issue this jaundiced statement, and for warning the highly revered judges of the Supreme Court, the bishops have proved that they are worse than the Obidients. There is no difference between that warning and the threats issued by the Obidients.

“By issuing that warning, the bishops became impediments to a free judiciary. It is not only a tyrannical government that can be a threat to the independence of the judiciary and its freedom, a belligerent citizenry as well as any arrogant institution or group, whether social or spiritual, that proves unwilling to submit to the rule of law can equally constitute cogs in the wheel of freedom of the judiciary,” Akintola said.

He said that the bishops action is calculated to coerce the judges to make judicial pronouncements that will favour the their favourite candidate.

He said, “MURIC charges judges of the Supreme Court to ignore the veiled threat from the Catholic bishops and to confront the case brought before them with truth, strength, vigour and faith.”