President Muhammadu Buhari has said ethnicity and religion are not the problems of Nigeria.
Buhari said Nigerians should blame themselves for the inherent injustices in the country.
The President spoke while receiving members of the Muhammadu Buhari/Osinbajo (MBO) Dynamic Support Group, at the State House in Abuja.
This was contained in a statement by his spokesman, Femi Adesina.
Recounting his struggles to get justice at the courts, after disputed results of presidential elections in 2003, 2007, and 2011, Buhari submitted that people who ruled against him were of his own ethnic stock and religious persuasion, while those who stood up for him were of other faiths and ethnicity.
“Our problem is not ethnicity or religion, it is ourselves,” the President submitted.
“After my third appearance in the Supreme Court, I came out to speak to those who were present then. I told them that from 2003, I’d spent 30 months in court.
“The President of the Court of Appeal, the first port of call for representation by presidential candidates then, was my classmate in secondary school in Katsina. We spent six years in the same class, Justice Umaru Abdullahi.
“My legal head was Chief Mike Ahamba, a Roman Catholic and an Ibo man. When the President of the court decided that we should present our case, my first witness was in the box.
“Ahamba insisted that a letter should be sent to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to present the register of constituencies in some of the States, to prove that what they announced was falsehood. It was documented.
“When they gave judgment, another Ibo man, the late Justice Nsofor, asked for the reaction from INEC to the letter sent to them. They just dismissed it. He then decided to write a minority judgment. That was after 27 months in court.
“We went to the Supreme Court. Who was the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN)? A Hausa-Fulani like me, from Zaria. The members of the panel went in for about 30 minutes, came back to say they were proceeding on break. They went for 3 months. When they came back, it didn’t take them 15 minutes, they dismissed us.
“In 2007, who was the CJN? Kutigi. Again, a Muslim from the North. After 8 months or so, he dismissed the case.
“Again in 2011, because I was so persistent, Musdafa, a Fulani man like me, from Jigawa, neighbour to my state, was a CJN. He dismissed my case.
“I’ve taken you round this to prove that our problem is not ethnicity or religion. It is ourselves.
“I refused to give up. I had tried to wear Agbada after what happened to me in Khaki.”
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