DAILY POST
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2023 presidential election and now President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Bola Ahmedu Tinubu, stirred the hornet’s nest recently when he cautioned the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT, against attempting to remove him from office on the grounds that he did not get 25 percent of the total votes cast during the presidential election in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja.
He warned that such action could lead to chaos and anarchy in the country.
President Tinubu asked the election tribunal to dismiss the petition seeking the nullification of his election for not securing 25 percent of the lawful votes cast in the FCT, arguing that having scored 25 percent in about 30 states of the federation, his failure to obtain 25 percent in the FCT would not be strong enough to deny him of his hard-earned victory.
Tinubu contested the February 25 presidential elections on the platform of the APC and was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, after polling 8,794,726 votes to beat his closest rivals, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who polled 6, 984, 520 votes to place second, and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, who came third with 6,101,533 votes.
However, Atiku and Obi had approached the election tribunal seeking to upturn Tinubu’s victory on the grounds that the elections were characterised by massive rigging as evidenced in the alleged widespread voters’ intimidation and suppression, ballot box snatching and destruction, over-voting, results manipulations, thuggery, vote buying, INEC’s failure to abide by its own rules and procedures, physical assault on voters, among others.
Apart from these, Atiku and Obi also want Tinubu’s victory to be nullified because he did not score 25 percent of the total valid votes cast in the FCT, which according to them, is a constitutional requirement before anybody can be declared president of Nigeria.
Since Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of that election, political discussion has been swinging like a pendulum. Nigerians, who prior to the elections were passive politically, had suddenly become active, discussing and analysing political developments from the election tribunal.
Analysts are united in agreement that never in the history of Nigerian politics has there been the kind of political awareness and participation that were witnessed during the 2023 general elections.
They also agreed that the country’s political firmament has never been as charged and ominous as it was between the period when Tinubu was declared the winner of the presidential election and May 29, when he was actually sworn in as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
However, Atiku and Obi have pursued their case at the election petition tribunal with each presenting before the tribunal pictures, videos and documentary evidence to prove that Tinubu should not have been declared as president in the first place, not to talk of swearing him into the office.
