The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has urged the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, to ensure that the subsisting intra-party leadership crisis in the main opposition party, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) is decided rapidly.

The rights group in a statement jointly endorsed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, submitted that the delay in adjudicating the leadership crises in the courts of law has contributed in weakening democracy in Nigeria.

Bemoaning what it called the rapid collapse of multiparty democracy in Nigeria, the Rights group attributed this retrogression to the dearth of constructive opposition politics brought about by the sponsored internal infighting for leadership control in the nation’s only hitherto viable opposition platform.

It therefore pleaded with the Supreme Court to decide the matter rapidly by not allowing lawyers to use technicalities to delay adjudication which will inevitably be fatalistic to the nation’s democracy and good governance.

HURIWA said it has it on good authority that certain elements within the executive arm of government controlled by the ruling APC are bankrolling a faction of the PDP leadership so as to completely whittle down constructive opposition politics and create room for the emergence of a one party state in Nigeria before long.

The group therefore stated that it's the direct intervention of the hierarchy of the Supreme Court under the control of the totally non-partisan Chief Justice of Nigeria that can bring about restoration of proper democracy with the qualitative resolution of the internal squabbles within PDP.

HURIWA said: “We are worried by the ignominious roles played by the lower courts in prolonging the leadership crises within the nation’s only opposition party. This prolonged litigation has made it possible for most elected office holders under the banner of PDP to cross over to the ruling APC and this phenomenon can only be checked if the Supreme Court can make haste and bring the matter to a finality by deciding in one way or the other on the authentic national Chairman of the party who enjoys the backing of majority of the genuine members of the PDP.

“We pray the Supreme Court not to allow the drama occasioned by the leadership tussle in the opposition PDP, which played out at the Supreme Court at the last hearing whereby two Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) announced appearances for the embattled political party to bring undue waste of time. This subterfuge must not stand in the way of rapidly making a decisive pronouncement on the real Chairman of the PDP one way or the other.”

HURIWA recalled that the presiding Justice, Justice Tanko Mohammed, adjourned hearing of the motion to May 4, 2017. But the Rights group said it’s a matter of national emergency that the apex court must abridge the time and make a pronouncement to end the imminent threat of Nigeria collapsing into a one party dictatorship.

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