Lawyer and Human Rights Advoctae, Liborous Oshoma has called on Nigerians to stop compensating persons who have been convicted with Political Offices.
Oshoma said this on Monday in an interview with ARISE NEWS, while reviewing the case against the Bayelsa deputy governorship Candidate of the All Progressive Congress, Joshua Maciver.
“The main issue for me is the conviction of a running mate. whether Nigerians should be compensating people who have been convicted with political office. You have an issue where someone in Bayelsa who has been convicted and sentenced by the court and who also admitted to breaking jail is a candidate in an election in APC.
“We are having someone who proudly has admitted to being convicted by court and who has not even served the sentence is being fiddled as a running mate.
“We want a society that our children will be proud to inherit. It is already bad enough that the government is granting amnesty to political office holders that have corruptly enriched themselves after conviction.
“It will also be very bad if as we speak now, the next thing, the government package amnesty for this same man. it’s quite unfortunate and Nigerians should not gloss over this.
“The challenge here is that we don’t even need to go to court for the police, the DSS or the national security adviser to immediately arrest such person and hand him over to the correctional services to serve their sentence.
“This idea of go to court is suddenly gaining traction under APC and it is very sad and unfortunate that these people, when they were in opposition, these were some of the things that they accused the PDP of doing and now they are in government, it feels worse that somebody who has been convicted, if you even see the arrogance with which this man was saying that he proudly did this thing, it shows that we don’t even have respect for our laws.”
He also encouraged the Judiciary to take advantage of the situation to redeem their reputation and encouraged the APC to do all they can to avoid further ridicule of the country.
“I also think that this is an opportunity for the judiciary to stand tall because the judiciary has been in the eye of the public and have been battered for too long in this election petition and now, we are building to another election petition in three states in November. Its quite unfortunate and I think that the APC should investigate and do the needful so that we do not further ridicule Nigeria.
“It also tells you the political environment that we operate in. The fortunate part for me is that this is coming up before the election because after the election, if anything had happened, we would have been chasing going to Kaduna, Toronto and Chicago but in this case, there is still time for the party to do the right thing and distance themselves from this act of criminality admitted to have been committed by their member.
“Let’s assume that the party was not aware, the moment the man came out in the gathering of the political party to confess that he was convicted and broke jail, at that point, it immediately becomes police or DSS matter. Imagine this was someone who did belong to a political party, he would have been declared wanted.”
Oshoma also called on the Peoples’ Democratic Party to take advantage of the times and play opposition to ensure that the right thing is done in Bayelsa State.
“I also pray the PDP, maybe they probably don’t know how to play opposition, this is the time for them to learn to play opposition party politics and take up this matter and ensure that the right thing I done.”
Chioma Kalu
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