President Bola Tinubu has warned members of the presidential elections tribunal that removing him as president could lead to a breakdown of law and order in Nigeria.
Mr Tinubu admitted his failure to score 25 per cent of votes cast in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, but said it was insufficient to overturn his victory as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
“Any other interpretation different from this will lead to absurdity, chaos, anarchy and alteration of the very intention of the legislature,” Mr Tinubu’s lawyers led by Wole Olanipekun said in their final defence statement to the court.
The lawyers were specifically addressing a section of the Nigerian Constitution that said a presidential candidate must score 25 per cent of votes in two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, or Abuja.
Public commentary has been rife about the intention of the clause after Mr Tinubu won the highest number of votes in a three-way presidential race in February but failed to score 25 per cent in the FCT.
Mr Tinubu’s team said courts have always been careful about giving extreme interpretation of the Constitution that could spark chaos.
“Our courts have always adopted the purposeful approach to the interpretation of our Constitution, as exemplified in a host of decisions,” the team said.
They also said Mr Tinubu would still have won the election even if he didn’t score anything in Abuja and one other state, although this was not the argument of petitions, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of Labour Party.
“Even if there was no election in one State (including the FCT), or even if the election of a State/States (including the FCT) is/are voided, the entire election cannot be voided or canceled.
“In concluding our arguments on this issue, we urge the court to hold that any election where the electorate exercise their plebiscite, there is neither a ‘royal’ ballot nor ‘royal’ voter; and that residents of the FCT do not have any special voting right over residents of any other State of the federation, in a manner similar to the concepts of preferential shareholding in Company Law.
“We urge this court to resolve this issue against the petitioners and in favour of the respondent,” the lawyers said.
Just wish to say your article is as surprising. The clarity to your put up
is just excellent and i can assume you’re knowledgeable on this subject.
Well along with your permission allow me to take hold of your feed to stay up to
date with drawing close post. Thank you 1,000,000 and please
continue the rewarding work.
My programmer is trying to persuade me to move to .net from PHP.
I have always disliked the idea because of the expenses.
But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on various websites for about a year and am anxious about switching to another platform.
I have heard excellent things about blogengine.net.
Is there a way I can transfer all my wordpress content into
it? Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated!
Also visit my site: https://images.google.md/url?sa=t&url=https://katalogfirm-pl.eu/
Since 25% is constitutionally enshrined,so be it. Let the right thing be done and let us uphold what’s constitutionally right.
Thanks for finally talking about > INEC has declared me a
winner, removing me as president over failure to score 25% in FCT may
trigger anarchy in Nigeria, Tinubu warns tribunal – NN News < Liked it!
Since you won under inec votes and not through that of nigerians, you should go and be president of federal Republic of INEC, while the person that won through the votes of nigerians, be the president of the federal Republic of Nigeria
The final submission of the respondents (APC, TINUBU and INEC) urging the tribunal to uphold INEC’s fraudulent declaration of Tinubu as the authentic president of the federal republic of Nigeria is preposterous and a rape on the sanctity of democracy.
The APC is, to a larger extent and to the best of my ability, a band of organized and unrepentant hooligans ready to dismantle Nigeria should the tribunal turn the tide against their criminal electoral victory and hold on ASO ROCK.
Their joint submission is a clear threat of their real intent and plans to cow Nigeria and her democratic institutions to accept thuggery, electoral malpractices, religious bigotry and ethnic jingoism, as democratic principles to true victory pathway to ASO ROCK.
NIGERIA WILL NEITHER SUBSCRIBE NOR SUCCUMB TO THEIR SATANIC DEMANDS AND ACTIONS.
ONLY GOD’S INTENDED PLANS AND PURPOSES FOR NIGERIA WILL STAND.
GOD BLESS NIGERIA.