*Asiwaju’s Emergence at the 2023 presidential poll fulfilled Constitutional Requirements and Electoral process aggrieved political candidates should embrace peace by Prof Ojo Emmanuel Ademola*
I told you that the petition around scoring 25% in Abuja as a basic requirement to be declared the president-elect can never fly whatever way you look at it. But there are lessons to learn here again. There are several dangers we need to avoid as we continue to grow our democracy. Nigerians need to avoid the dangers of promoting politicians who lack satisfactory logical and mathematical literacy in our Constitution. What that Consitution says literally and in a logical manner declared that Abuja is constitutionally a State. The “and” conjunction is never an AND operator as it could be in Logic because Abuja was not taken as a seclusion operand but given a status of a state when talking about a Candidate having 25% of the 2/3 of 37 and not of 36. Let me give you a corollary with Gubernatorial elections, which of the LGA has a special status constitutionally? No LGA, but with the Presidential Election it must be clear that Abuja is a State for election purposes. Also, by section 299 of 1999 Constitution as amended, the Supreme Court accurately interpreted it and gave superfluity of judgments that conferred Abuja as a State in such a matter. Taken law as a basic common sense aptly, even beyond the clear requirements of the law, do voters in Abuja possess two heads? Are they superior to voters in the other 36 States? The answer remains a decisive no! Simply put, the issue of not scoring 25 per cent in FCT is of no moment and therefore dissolves without remedy! The Constitution can never intend that Abuja’s voters are superior to voters in other States of the Federation. Therefore, and essentially, I congratulate INEC once again for complied with the Law and Electoral Act and doing the right thing to declare Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) as the President-Elect. BAT was duly elected as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by fulfilling the requirements of the Constitution and Electoral Law from the 25th February 2023’s election and to be sworn in by God’s Grace on the 29th May 2023.
Prof. Ojo Emmanuel Ademola
