The Founder of Stanbic IBTC and Anap Foundation, Atedo Peterside, on Friday said the “All Eyes on the Judiciary” mantra should not be offensive to any right-thinking Nigerian.
The phrase gained popularity in recent months, appearing on billboards around Abuja amid proceedings of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, where the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party (LP)’s Peter Obi are challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Tinubu was declared the winner of the February 25 election in the early hours of March 1, 2023 with 8,794,726 votes against Abubakar’s 6,984,520 votes and Obi’s 6,101,533.
After Tinubu’s declaration, Obi and Atiku headed to court with the mantra “All Eyes on the Judiciary” gaining traction.
While many have faulted it, Peterside took to X, formerly Twitter, to justify the phrase.
“For the record, methinks #AllEyesOnTheJudiciary is a neutral slogan that should ordinarily not offend a right-thinking & sincere person in a civilised society,” he said.
“I can understand someone rejecting a negative slogan like “Let us turn our noses up at the Judiciary”. Enough said.”
Peterside’s argument comes days after the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) dissolved its Advertising Standards Panel over the hotly debated billboards.
The Director General of ARCON, Dr Olalekan Fadolapo, in a statement on Tuesday, said the concepts exposed were not approved by the panel, saying the advertising council had directed that all the materials being exposed be brought down immediately and the violators sanctioned.
“The Advertising Standards Panel of the Council also erred in the approval of one of the concepts as the advertisement failed vetting guidelines on the following grounds,” Fadolapo added.
