BY NONYELUM JULIET
Kaduna
The Northern Emancipation Network (NEN) has descended hard on a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Olisa Agbakoba for demanding the removal of Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmoud Yakubu by President Bola Tinubu, describing it as frustration of a bad loser.
Attributing Agbakoba’s demand to symptoms of irritation of the electoral defeat suffered by his Labour Party, the Northern Network advised him to seek lessons in political tolerance, and sportsmanship.
A statement issued by the Network’s Chairman, Sulaiman Abbah, said it is unfortunate that Agbakoba, a SAN, from whom ordinary sanity and decency are expected, should be so blinded by prejudice as not to acknowledge the almost universal recognition of the February 2023 election as most credible, free and fair.
The Group wondered how a Senior Advocate would stoop so low as to make remarks that potentially ridicules the respected legal profession and falsely attempt to review, rewrite and distort facts.
“How can anybody in his right senses, fail to see credibility and fairness in an election in which Bola Tinubu for instance, lost his major enclave of Lagos, or where Buhari, a sitting president at that time, lost his two main catchment states of Katsina and Kaduna, ” Abbah quarried in the statement.
He recounted that only in the most credibly conducted election process could seven serving Nigerian state governors lose bids to the Senate while in Kaduna and Kano for instance, the ruling All Progressives Congress lost almost all their Senate seats to the opposition.
“It is ridiculous, unfortunate and embarrassing that Agbakoba and his ilk would not be fair as to see the simple fairness in an election that saw for instance, the ruling APC lost the governorship offices of Kano and Zamfara States to the opposition.
“Without the need to give people like Agbakoba any reason to feel important, we join the vast majority of responsible Nigerians and the civilized global community in acknowledging that the elections conducted by Mahmud remain the most fair, free and credible in the recent history of Nigeria’s political development, ” Abbah said.