Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Musa Bello has washed his hands off the court judgment, extending the tenure of elected Council Chairmen and Counselors from three years to four.
Answering questions at the weekly ministerial media briefing on the achievements of the FCT Ministry today, June 2 at the Presidential villa, Abuja, Musa Bello said that the administration is guided by the rule of law and would not be seen to contravene court ruling on any matter.
“With regards to the Area council elections that took place and the court cases, I want to emphatically say that obviously, for those of you who know me, I follow the rule of law.
“And this government is a government of rule of law. So you can be rest assured that the FCTA had nothing to do with the court case at all.
“It doesn’t make sense for us to superintend over an electoral process that was adjudged very transparent and during that area council elections, we lost some, we won some. Tell me any area council or local government in Nigeria where the sitting government lost an election.
“Even if there are, we can count them on our fingers; that shows you that the FCT administration, and by extension, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari is law abiding.
“We allowed for free and fair election and that’s exactly what happened. And like any election, there are those who felt aggrieved. So they went to court, and the court gave a judgment and as a law abiding government, we honoured the court judgment and that’s a natural thing to do.
“I think it is unthinkable for me as a sitting minister in the federal government of Nigeria in 2022 to flout a court judgment. It doesn’t make sense.
“So now, what we are doing is we are awaiting for the outcome of the cases in the court. And at the end of the day, as a law-abiding administration, whatever the court says we move on, because the whole idea is that elections are overdone. What we are to concentrate on now is governance.”
