Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned the taking part in of President Bola Tinubu’s marketing campaign anthem, “On Your Mandate,” on the opening of the 2025 All Nigeria Judges Convention.
He described the incident as an “assault on nationwide dignity” and proof of what he referred to as the administration’s seize of state establishments.
In a press release on Wednesday, Atiku mentioned he initially dismissed the clip — which aired on Channels Tv — as pretend till it was confirmed to be genuine.
“What I noticed was nothing wanting an assault on our nationwide dignity,” he mentioned, including President Tinubu allowed his “private political anthem” to switch the Nationwide Anthem on the finish of the Chief Justice’s deal with.
Atiku criticised the Presidency and the workplace of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, for failing to supply any clarification.
“ I waited for an evidence from the Presidency or the workplace of the CJN. Silence. Complete, deafening silence,” he acknowledged.
The previous vp mentioned the incident matches into what he described because the Tinubu administration’s systematic weakening of democratic establishments.
“The Tinubu-led APC authorities has persistently pursued a scientific seize of state establishments, crushing opposition voices, and steering Nigeria towards a de facto one-party state,” Atiku alleged.
He argued that the taking part in of the tune at a judicial gathering undermined President Tinubu’s personal remarks on the occasion on defending judicial integrity.
“Whereas preaching morality, his administration allowed (or engineered) the taking part in of his personal partisan marketing campaign music earlier than the complete Nigerian judiciary,” he mentioned, calling it “reckless, scandalous, disgraceful, and deeply irresponsible.”
Atiku warned that such actions threat coercing the judiciary into partisan alignment.
“This authorities is making an attempt to pull the judiciary into the partisan gutters of the APC,” he mentioned, including that judges owe loyalty to the Structure and the rule of legislation, to not any political determine.
Nevertheless, the Nationwide Judicial Institute (NJI) has rejected claims that judges participated in singing the anthem.
In a separate assertion on Wednesday, NJI spokesperson Kolade Umoru described the stories as “completely false and unfounded.”
He mentioned the one track rendered collectively was the Nationwide Anthem, taken at each the start and finish of the ceremony.
In accordance with him, the transient taking part in of “On Your Mandate” got here solely from the Guards Brigade Band, which acted underneath navy protocol whereas ushering the President to the rostrum.
“The judiciary had no management over the musical picks of the Brigade,” the NJI clarified.
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