A Labour Party chieftain and frontline estate mogul contended that Tinubu’s inauguration, happening when the courts has not examined the processes leading to the announcement of a winner, would be counter-productive.
Alex Obiechina, a Labour Party (LP) chieftain, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to move the handover ceremony and inauguration of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu to June 12.
In a statement issued Sunday in Abuja, he said: “The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) affirmed the inconclusive nature of the February 25 presidential election.
“When the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, asked those who rejected declaration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as winner of the election to go to court, he unwittingly acknowledged that his pronouncement was not the final verdict.”
The Final Decision
He added: “The change would give the judiciary enough time to resolve competing issues surrounding the actual winner of the February 25 presidential election.
“Nigerians celebrated the Buhari administration’s declaration of June 12 as ‘Real Democracy Day.'”
Obiechina emphasised that the 2023 presidential election would generate the same level of national enthusiasm as the June 12, 1993 election.
He urged President Buhari to keep his promise not to interfere with the presidential election.
Furthermore, he believes there is need to allow the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to make the final decision on the election’s outcome before the winner is sworn-in.
According to him, swearing in Tinubu, a disputed winner, could be likened to annulment of the June 12, 1993.
“A large amount of evidence is before the Presidential Election Tribunal,” he emphasised.
Read Also: Ahead Of Guber Polls, Kogi Gov’t Warns Public Of Fake News
He said, “This would amount to imbuing the court with helplessness, rendering the petitioners’ actions academic.
The Gordian Knot
“However, aside from the disagreements over Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of the February 25 presidential election, strong constitutional arguments have been advanced to cast serious doubt on INEC’s hasty handing over of a certificate of return to Tinubu.
“The major constitutional hurdle is Section 134, which requires a winner in a presidential election to receive 25% of the total valid votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)”.
For him, there is a Gordian knot that the nation’s judiciary has to untie.
As a result, Obiechina wants President Buhari to avoid handing over or inauguration of a new administration on May 29.
This, he says, would disabuse Nigerians of the notion that the presidency was behind the plot to subvert the expressed will of the Nigerian electorate.
Furthermore, he requests that the president should respect Nigerians’ wishes by refraining from the unconstitutional act of holding Tinubu’s inauguration in the beneficiary of a flawed and disputed declaration.
