Nigeria@59: Atiku decries attack on judiciary, press

Former Nigeria’s Vice President and Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji  Atiku Abubakar has decried what he described as an attack on the judiciary and absence of press freedom in the country.

Atiku, in a statement on Monday said Nigeria’s founding fathers could never have fathomed that the nation would face such situation fifty nine years after gaining independence.

He believes there must be press freedom and the judiciary must be independent while youths and activists who should ordinarily be the future of Nigeria should not be intimidated when they speak out about the state of the nation.

“All is not well when judges are persecuted for enforcing the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental human rights of Nigerian citizens,” he said in his Independence Day message.

He added, “All is not well when Nigeria is now officially the world headquarters for extreme poverty and out of school children, yet the cost of maintaining those in government continues to grow, while the needs of the governed are not being met.

“And certainly, all is not well when the media cannot freely express itself without the fear that those who wield the big stick would use it on them for saying things as they are.”