Billboards for “All Eyes On The Judiciary” are not objectionable, says Atedo Peterside

The slogan “All Eyes on the Judiciary” was supported on Friday by Atedo Peterside, the founder of Stanbic IBTC and the Anap Foundation.

According to Peterside, a “right-thinking person” should not find the phrase insulting.

In a statement defending the hashtag, Peterside on X, formerly Twitter, said: “For the record, methinks #AllEyesOnTheJudiciary is a neutral slogan that should typically not disturb a right-thinking & sincere person in a civilised society.

“Let us turn our noses up at the Judiciary” is a derogatory slogan, and I can understand why some people might reject it. I’ll stop here.

Peterside’s position was taken a few days after the Nigerian Advertising Regulatory Council disbanded its Advertising Standards Panel as a result of the controversy sparked by the billboards.

In a statement on Tuesday, Dr. Olalekan Fadolapo, Director General of ARCON, stated that the panel had not approved the notions that had been submitted.

Fadolapo claimed that as a result, the council ordered the removal of the offending material immediately and the implementation of sanctions against the violators.

The advertising breached the vetting requirements on the following reasons, hence the Advertising Standards Panel of the Council erred in approving one of the concepts, Fadolapo continued.

The recent appearance of this expression on billboards in Abuja during the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal proceedings has given it more notoriety.

Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) have challenged President Bola Tinubu’s victory in this tribunal.

With 8,794,726 votes, Tinubu defeated Abubakar and Obi, who each received 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes, to win the election on February 25.