The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal has spoken, and its time we move on. The Atiku/Obi Ticket did the right thing by going to court. We must stop legitimizing our thuggery proclivity under the banner of "growing our democracy." We have had the First Republic. The Second Republic. And now, the Third Republic. Yet, we are still excusing our failures, growing our democracy. Our Democracy has come of age and it has outgrown its puberty stage. A sixty years old man is no longer a juvenile, learning to separate rights from wrongs. It was on that understanding that I fully supported the decision of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to proceed to the Tribunal. And he did. That he was not successful is beside the point.
Today, all the President Men and election manipulators at Abuja have come to the realization that the years of putting pressure on the defeated candidate at a fraudulent election to sleep on his rights for the sake of peace are over. Thuggery is a crime and must be condemned in its totality. Electoral malpractices must be condemned and treated as a treasonable felony. Appointing one's family members into the electoral body must be treated as criminal interference with the electoral process. And such appointment must be a ground for declaring an election null and void to the extent of the participation of such appointee.
The next question now is, should Atiku and his team proceed to the Supreme Court? My answer is unequivocal NO. When the present administration shamelessly tempered with the leadership structure of the Supreme Court, the goal was to preempt Alhaji Atiku Abubakar from litigating his imminent defeat that was already planned out by INEC and APC leadership. But he did and the Tribunal says he didn't prove his case. Even though he was not successful, his legal team exposes the naivety and the level of integrity deficit afflicting the Chairman of INEC. Above all, they expose the emptiness of the people managing our federal system. Their stories and the documentary evidence relating to the proof of possession of the West Africa School Certificate by the President was shocking and totally ludicrous. I will come back to this later.
Mahmood Yakubu, the Chairman of INEC, expended a huge chunk of his running capital acquiring state of the art technology, aimed at ensuring smooth transmissions of election results from the polling units and collation centers to a dedicated server. But contrary to the overwhelming endorsement and celebration of that technological feat, he later jettisoned the idea (allegedly) just to facilitate electoral malpractices. Because, with the server in place and running smoothly; collations, verifications, and authentication of result counts would have been a child play. He said he didn't deploy any, and the Tribunal concur. Also, the Tribunal seemingly did not reckon with the testimony of the witnesses (INEC Agents) who testified that they did transmit the results electronically as they were thought pre-election. Rather, the Tribunal alluded to a fake website as the crux of Atiku's case for the existence of a server which they did not buy into.
On the question of acquiring a basic qualification for Presidential eligibility, I've made myself very clear on that in 2015 when the same issue came up. My position was: Candidate Buhari is eminently qualified - you cannot disqualify a man who rose to the position of a General or Major General in the Armed Forces of his country on the theory that he did not possess a Grammar School Certificate, which is the basic requirement for participating at a Presidential race. However, lying about it if you don't have it is perjury per se. But whether that is pre-or-post election eligibility scrutiny was not resolved by the Tribunal. And I want to address that here.
At the stage of our democracy, our electoral laws must be very clear on what constitute pre-election requirements that must be done with before the real election, and if not so resolved, must be taken as lapsed. And I do not think the question of the qualification of a candidate is a pre-general election resolution only. As between candidates of the same political parties, yes. But certainly not applicable to a candidate of another political party.
The question is whether a candidate of a different political party can petition for the disqualification of a candidate of another party when the general election has not taken place? I do not think so. At that stage, he has no standing to intervene, until after the general election. Therefore, the party who fielded an unqualified candidate must face the consequences of its action after the general election.
In the instant case, the issue is not just whether Candidate Buhari meets the educational requirements consistent with the demands of the enabling laws, but at what stage in the electoral process must the issue be raised? Is it during the Primaries or during the general election or both? The fact that the issue of eligibility or otherwise of Candidate Buhari was not raised or litigated between him and his party folks during the APC primaries did not vitiate such inquiries during the general election. I am of the view that it can be integrated amongst other grounds in the petition.
INEC was never at any time impartial or exhibited any modicum of independence throughout the election. They complicated the process of collating results from the onset with a view to making it difficult for Mr. Atiku Abubakar to prove his case in the event of litigation. In addition, I do not see the possibility of this country ever overcoming the culture of under-age voting prevalent in the North and the mass thumb printing of ballot papers copiously documented in the North East that we saw during the election. That a region that was so ravaged by the scourge of insurgency and its people dislocated and remain state-less to achieve close to 90% of voters accreditation, explains the enormity of the irregularity that characterized the presidential election. With the bogus accreditation figures, results were awarded or allocated accordingly throughout North Central and the North East.
Nevertheless, given the dramatic removal of Justice Onoghen from the Supreme Court, the possibility of obtaining fair justice at the apex court on the election petition is infinitesimally shallow. THIS SUPREME COURT WILL NEVER REMOVE PRESIDENT BUHARI FROM OFFICE. Period. And I remain steadfast to that holding based on the facts on the ground until I am proven wrong. It has nothing to do with the jurisprudential acumen of the Atiku/Obi legal team or their case management prowess. It is the Nigerian system - a system that defines eligibility, not on the character of the candidate or on the basis of what he is bringing to the office as a leader, but on the basis of his place of birth and his faith and belief system. That is what we must fight against if we must maintain our unity.
I do not know the nature of the counsel Mr. Atiku and Mr. Obi are getting right now from their Lawyers and Advisers. I humbly believe that it is time to move on, and send a congratulatory message or phone call to the President-elect and his Vice President and wish them well. On my part, I want to use this opportunity to extend my congratulatory wishes to President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo.
To Mr. President and Professor Osinbajo, if you cherish this victory, you must also cherish the freedom of Col Dasuki, Sowore, and El Zakzaky and other Nigerians suffering undue persecution under your command. Congratulations, once again. Long Live the Federal.
