LEKAN SOTE FROM PUNCH
Barring a court ruling setting his election aside, Bola Tinubu, who polled 8,794,726 of the votes cast on February 25, 2023, will be sworn in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on Monday, May 29, 2023. Because he is leading in just 12 out of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, this may not be an exactly tidy win.
Yet, he garnered the highest number of votes, and scored at least 25 per cent of votes in 30 states, to satisfy Section 134 of Nigeria’s Constitution, which says, “A candidate for an election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected, where… he has the majority of votes cast at the election; and he has not less than one quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
You’ll wonder how the election, that is not exactly flawless, could have been rigged for Tinubu if he, Director General of his campaign council, and other chieftains of his party, the All Progressives Congress such as the President, APC Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, APC Secretary, Kano State Governor Ganduje and Kaduna State Governor Nasir el Rufai, lost their states.
But that is something for the courts to sort out. Some of the contestants, like first runner-up, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of Peoples Democratic Party and second runner-up former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi of Labour Party say they will go to court.
The Director of Public Affairs of the Abubakar Campaign Council, Senator Dino Melaye, says Tinubu’s winning of the presidential election is “a grave injustice which will not stand.”
Obi said, “We will explore all legal and peaceful option(s) to recover our mandate. We won the election and we will prove it to Nigerians.”
Abubakar and Obi rebuffed Tinubu’s peace offering and asked the courts for leave to inspect the election documents. Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Sokoto states that asked the courts to declare Tinubu’s election as null, void and of no effect, have withdrawn their petition, which their lawyer hints may become fodder for a presidential tribunal.
Abubakar led top chieftains of the PDP, all clad in mournful black clothes on a protest march to tell INEC that the presidential election result is unacceptable to them. Also, an Igbo group was reported to be on the march demanding Obi as President.
Tinubu, who probably realises that he will inherit a fractious nation, should be magnanimous in victory, and avoid gloatful celebration. Thankfully, he told his fellow contestants, “I extend the hand of friendship… Let’s collaborate and work together.”
Some suggest that Tinubu should form a government of national unity, because northern region of Nigeria, that fielded former Vice President Abubakar, demanded a make up for the four years of Goodluck Jonathan presidency, which, they argue, should have been the second term of President Umaru Yar’Adua, had he not died.
The Igbo of South-East Nigeria certainly feel that by denying Obi the presidency, the rest of Nigeria has once again conspired to exclude them from the inner court of Nigeria’s political commonwealth.
President-elect Tinubu must urgently begin to gear up for his duties by engaging his counsellors to come up with appropriate strategies to consolidate his (contested) victory, heal the wounds caused by the rhetoric of the campaigns, unify the country and turn the economy around.
He needs to start to assemble the men and women who will help him further articulate and achieve his policies and programmes. A friend has suggested that very few of the “community” of 18 presidential candidates adequately articulated their manifestos. The campaigns have largely been much mudslinging, fake news and hate speech.
