Tag: APC

The needless jousting between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the watermark on the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) judgement indicates that long after the dust must have settled and the guns fallen silent on the 2023 presidential election, the war will still continue by any other means possible. The problem clearly is not the erudition of the justices in delivering the judgement, though some analysts unbelievably took issue with their elocution, nor the promptness and comprehensiveness of the court in coming to judgement; the problem is the obstinate refusal of the defeated to admit that their campaign ineptitude and incompetent legal challenge doomed their chances. The defeated, deploying all contrivances, no matter how farcical, including jostling over watermarks, are determined to make water flow uphill.

Two Thursdays ago, the parties collected their copies of the judgement, a very simple and uncomplicated process. But, given the already foul mood of the defeated parties, nothing is direct and simple anymore. Hence the battle of the watermarks. The PDP fired the first short by suggesting that every certified copy of the judgement bore the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team (TPLT) watermark, insinuating that either the APC provided secretarial services for the court or originated the document. The PDP then drew a distinction between watermark and a header, arguing that what was inscribed on the now controversial document was a header, not a watermark. It then proceeded stealthily into a definitional maze waxing hot about headers, footers and watermarks. The party refused to address the inane suggestion that the ‘unintentional’ watermark made the APC to exhibit its ‘crime’. Yet the PDP refused to respond to APC rebuttal that the opposition party actually collected the first certified copy.

Read Also: Ganduje commissions APC Campaign Council Secretariat in Imo

The questions then remain: who collected the first copy, and does that copy reflect any watermark, or header, as the party prefers to label the inscription? The PDP said it had no wish to trigger a controversy, but in rushing to town with accusations it had not fully investigated, the party did nothing but stirred a storm in a teacup. The APC claimed that the certified copies issued to the parties, including its own, bore no watermark, and that the Tinubu team merely embossed their copy to differentiate it from those of others. Days after the PDP allegation, neither the LP nor the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) was yet to comment on the infamous watermark. If the two other defeated parties also applied for and collected copies, surely they should be in a position to say something. Moreover, though the LP began the campaign of scurrility, escalating it to the point of even insinuating that a coup would be desirable, the PDP has taken over the plot to delegitimise the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.

The watermark controversy is thus merely the latest weapon seized upon by the opposition parties to cloud and foul the 2023 election cycle, wrong-foot the ruling party, and put the APC presidential candidate perpetually on the defensive. The opposition has been largely successful. Then candidate Tinubu’s birth was never real or, if real, not good enough. Perhaps he was a phantom. His certificate was equally dubious and illegally procured, and the university he attended, had the PDP had its way, would also have been passed off as fictional. After their shock defeat, which they tried to abort using the devices of election annulment, the opposition parties fiercely transited into maligning and defaming the judiciary, and then zeroing in on the justices who would hear the case, including questioning their competence, morality, sense of fairness and patriotism.

Sensing that these campaigns were still not yielding the expected results, the opposition started a blitzkrieg of threatening and inciting billboard campaigns against the judiciary in order to procure a predetermined outcome favourable to either the PDP or LP. It is instructive that nearly throughout the campaigns and incitements, the PDP and the LP never attacked each other. They would be satisfied with either party taking the presidency, anyone but the APC. So they have focused their attacks on the APC, especially the president, and have remained undaunted. The PEPC judgement, rather than weaken their attacks and sober their intentions, has spurred them to further malignity. Increasingly, unable to find any legal or political leg to stand on, the opposition has inched dangerously into the province of insurrection, even wishing the entire system to collapse. If they cannot intimidate national institutions into the service of opposition objectives, then, in their view, they have either been compromised or are undeserving of sustenance. At no time in the nation’s history have opposition parties engaged in such open and bitter campaigns against national stability.

Will the campaigns stop even after the Supreme Court might have denied them their wish? Certainly not. What is fuelling their fanaticism is not political virtue or moral principle; they came to that realisation barely weeks after the election. Instead, they are propelled, together with many powerful individuals who connive at their malevolence, by their irrational desire to destroy the suitress if they cannot have her. Ultimately, the opposition campaigns will fail, but given their dominance of the social media, the inanity on display on the social media, and the inability of the APC to launch effective counterattack, the campaign of scurrility and mendacity will continue for a little longer than it deserves.