By Sunday Ani
Two weeks to the May 29 handover date from the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari to the incoming President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, tension, anxiety, fear and expectations seem to have enveloped the nation. There seems to be a lot of subterranean moves by different elements to ensure that nothing goes wrong on that day. This is not unconnected with the public outcry that followed the declaration of Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner of the February 25 Presidential election, despite agitations by the opposition political parties and a good number of the Nigerian electorate; a development which has ultimately left many Nigerians disenchanted and disillusioned.
The development has also created tension and palpable fear among Nigerians as arguments and counter arguments continue to fly around as to the feasibility or otherwise of the inauguration on May 29. This is because about five political parties, including the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), alongside their presidential candidates, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, are already at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), challenging Tinubu’s eligibility to contest for the office of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and his eventual declaration as the President-elect.
Apart from the usual allegations of rigging and manipulation of election results to favour one candidate or the other, in this case the APC candidate, the plaintiffs have equally placed three other issues before the election petition tribunal to determine before the inauguration. First, they are alleging that Tinubu did not get 25 percent of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, as required by law to be declared president, and as such, should not be sworn in as president. They quoted section 134 (2) (a) (b) which states that for you to be declared the president-elect, where there are two or more candidates, you must have scored 25 percent of the votes cast in two-third of the states of the federation and the FCT, to back up their argument that Tinubu cannot be sworn in, having failed to meet that threshold. They also stressed that INEC had no reason to have declared him president-elect in the first place, having failed to meet that threshold.
Secondly, they are also alleging that the vice president-elect, Kashim Shettima has a double nomination hanging on his neck, having obtained the nomination form for the Senate and that of the vice president at the same time; a development they argued is enough to disqualify both himself and the president-elect, Tinubu. They drew attention to what happened in Bayelsa State where David Lyon, who was the Governor-elect was disqualified a day to his swearing in because his deputy had issues bordering on certificate forgery. In other words, their argument is that since it is a joint ticket, whatever affects one, will automatically affects the other as the case of Lyon demonstrated.
The third case against Tinubu’s inauguration is his drug related case in the United States of America, where he was alleged to have forfeited about $460,000 as proceeds of crime.
As a result of the foregoing development, Nigerians have taken different positions. There are those who insist that the inauguration should be held to avoid a vacuum in the presidency while hearing continues on the matter before the PEPT, stressing that if at the end of the day, the matter did not favour Tinubu, he would leave the office for whoever that would be declared the winner of the election. Those on this divide hinged their argument on the fact that it has always been the tradition for the president-elect to be sworn in while the case against him continued in the court and that Tinubu’s case should not be treated differently.
However, there are other Nigerians who argued that the inauguration should be put on hold pending the determination of the matter before the court, particularly the issue of 25 percent votes cast in the FCT, Shettima’s double nomination and Tinubu’s $460,000 forfeiture in a drug related crime in the US. They are insisting that the current case is quite different from the previous presidential election litigations, because according to them, what is currently on ground is a constitutional matter unlike what obtained in the past.
“What we have today is a constitutional matter. How can somebody take an oath to uphold the same constitution that he has already violated from the outset? The fact that he did not get 25 percent of the votes cast in the FCT and he was declared the winner of the election is a violation of the constitution. So, how can he swear to uphold the same constitution that his election was in violation of? In the previous presidential election matters, it has always been cases of rigging, manipulations, ballot box snatching and destruction, stuffing of ballot boxes with thumb-printed ballot papers, allocation of votes and all that, in which case, witnesses had to be called from different areas across the country where such infractions were alleged to have happened. But, in this case, the issue of the 25 percent in the FCT, and the double nominations, are strictly constitutional matters, which do not require any witness for them to be determined and trashed out. So, the court must do that before any inauguration because it can be done even within seven days,” they argued.
As the argument on the constitutionality or otherwise of the inauguration on May 29 rages on, a group of persons under the aegis of Abuja voters and residents have secured a court order to stop the inauguration until the issue of 25 percent votes cast in the FCT is determined.
One of those Nigerians that agree with the position that 25 percent votes cast in the FCT is mandatory for a candidate to win the presidential election is Mr. Dokun Ojomo. He has gone the extra mile to shed lights on the issue of 25 percent votes cast in the FCT, quoting the Supreme Court ruling in the case between Muhammadu Buhari, as the then candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as the then candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Friday, July 15, 2005, to drive home his argument.
According to Mr. Ojomo, in the ruling, the apex court had upheld that presidential candidates must win 25 per cent of all votes cast in 24 states of the federation, as well as in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja.
On the outcome of the 2003 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) and the 25 percent of the votes cast in the FCT saga, Ojomo wrote: “After the 2003 elections, Buhari called for the cancellation of the election since Obasanjo failed to win in the FCT, but it was resolved that winning the FCT is not mandatory, rather what is mandatory is having 25 percent of votes cast in the FCT.
“President Obasanjo back then satisfied the basic requirements of 25 percent in 24 states of the federation and 25 percent in the FCT, as well as having the highest number of total valid votes cast. It was also stated that if there was no election in Abuja or the election in Abuja was canceled, the election would automatically go into a re-run regardless of any candidate satisfying other requirements, which validated the importance and exceptional factor of the FCT in our constitution.
“It was established in 2003 by those justices that 25 percent of the votes cast in FCT is as mandatory as having the highest number of total valid votes cast to win an election in Nigeria.”
He noted that the justices that resolved the FCT case between Obasanjo and Buhari were Justice Mohammed Lawal, Justice Idris Kutigi, Justice Denis Edozie, Justice Sam Odemwingie, Justice Aloysius Iyorgyer, Justice Umaru Kalgo, and Justice Ignatius Chukwudi.
In summary, he is saying that the Supreme Court ruling had upheld that a presidential candidate must win 25 per cent of all votes cast in 24 states of the federation, and 25 percent in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja to be declared president-elect.
Contributing to the discourse, Chairman of the Middle Belt Forum (MBF), Dr. Pogu Bitrus noted that if there was tension, anxiety, fear or whatever in the land, the electoral body, INEC should be held responsible for all those.
He blamed the INEC for refusing or failing to do the necessary consultations with the apex court in the land before announcing the winner of the presidential election, having known that there were constitutional issues surrounding the outcome. “There are some of the issues that are constitutional and if INEC did not have competent lawyers, it should have requested clearance from the Supreme Court since there was already an existing judgment on the issue of 25 percent votes cast in the FCT. If there was a judgment by the Supreme Court that clearly states that in addition to getting 25 percent votes cast in two-third of the states in the federation, a winner must also get 25 percent votes cast in the FCT, INEC should not have declared a winner in the first place. In spite of other issues that might look technical, the constitutional issues should have been considered before INEC made a declaration. I am not a lawyer, and I am a judge, but if a judgment has already been passed by the Supreme Court, INEC shouldn’t have done what it did,” he insisted.
On the argument about whether or not it is appropriate to inaugurate the president-elect on May 29, considering the issues on ground, Dr. Bitrus also said his interest is to see INEC prosecuted and punished for flagrantly flouting the constitution and throwing the country into a political quagmire. He said: “I wouldn’t want to join in the debate of whether or not the inauguration should be held on May 29, but INEC should be brought to book first. If a judgment of the Supreme Court is already there, why did INEC pronounce somebody a winner? The INEC chairman should have said, ‘look there is a lacuna, we have a problem here. The person who has the highest votes cast doesn’t have 25 percent votes cast in the FCT and the Supreme Court passed a judgment in 2005 in a case between Buhari and former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the same matter. So, Supreme Court, please give us clarifications, so that we don’t make a declaration and it creates a problem.’ But, the INEC did not do that; so whatever happens, INEC is responsible. INEC disregarded a constitutional issue, which the Supreme Court had already passed judgment on, and declared somebody the winner. We are now in a mess and INEC should be held responsible.”