- Proposes Six-Year Single Term, Wants Litigation Conclusion Before Inauguration
- Flays Supreme Court For Legalising Forgery, Perjury, Illegality, Others
- Presidency, APC Counter Atiku, Urge Him To Resign
Reactions have continued to trail the October 26, 2023 Judgement by the Supreme Court which affirmed the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All-Progressives Congress as the duly elected President of Nigeria in the February 25, 2023 Presidential Election.
The Matrix reports that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his Labour Party’s counterpart, Peter Obi had both approached the Apex Court to overturn Tinubu’s victory.
However, the Apex Court threw out the appeal by the two men for lacking in merit.
This decision did not go down well with Atiku who at a World Press Conference on Monday, October, 2023 four days after the judgement raised some observations and recommendations on how to move the country forward.
Atiku described the judgement as a “legalization of forgery, perjury and illegality”.
He called for a series of amendments to be made to the Constitution and the electoral laws in the country.
He added that the law must mandate electronic voting and collation of results, and compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to verify the credentials of candidates, amongst others.
The PDP candidate also urged the National Assembly to amend relevant laws and ensure that litigations are concluded before the inauguration of elected persons.
The former Vice President said, “Firstly, we must make electronic voting and collation of results mandatory. This is the 21st century and countries less advanced than Nigeria are doing so already. It is only bold initiatives that transform societies.
“Secondly, we must provide that all litigation arising from a disputed election must be concluded before the inauguration of a winner. This was the case in 1979. The current time frame between elections and the inauguration of winners is inadequate to dispense with election litigations.
“What we have currently is akin to asking thieves to keep their loot and use the same to defend themselves while the case of their robbery is being decided. It only encourages mandate banditry rather than discourages it.
“Thirdly, in order to ensure popular mandate and real representation, we must move to require a candidate for President to earn 50% +1 of the valid votes cast, failing which a run-off between the top two candidates will be held. Most countries that elect their presidents use this Two-Round System (with slight variations) rather than our current First-Past-the-Post system.
“Examples include France, Finland, Austria, Bulgaria, Portugal, Poland, Turkey and Russia, Argentina, Brazil, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Namibia, Mozambique, Madagascar and even Liberia where a run-off is expected to hold in the coming days.
“Fourthly, in order to reduce the desperation of incumbents and distractions from governing and also to promote equity and national unity, we need to move to a single six-year term for President to be rotated among the six geo-political zones. This will prevent the ganging up of two or more geo-political zones to alternate the presidency among themselves to the exclusion of other zones.
“INEC should be mandated to verify the credentials submitted to it by candidates and their parties and where it is unable to do so – perhaps because the institutions involved did not respond in time – it must publicly state so and have it on record.
“A situation where a candidate submits contradictory credentials to INEC in different election cycles and the electoral umpire accepts them without question points to gross negligence, at best, or collusion to break the law by the leadership of the INEC, at worst. The submission of contradictory qualifying documents by a candidate as well as those found to be forged or falsified should disqualify a candidate even if the falsification or forgery is discovered after the person had been sworn into office.”
“In addition to these proposed constitutional amendments, the Electoral Act should be amended to provide that, except where they explicitly violate the Constitution and other laws, the rules and procedures laid down by the electoral umpire and made public for the benefit of the contestants and the voters will be treated as sacrosanct by the courts in deciding on election disputes.”
Atiku also harped on the need for well-thought-out provisions in the legislation and regulations to reform the judiciary, including the “introduction of an automated case assignment system; transparency in the appointment of judges; a practice directory that stresses that the goal of judges in election cases should be to discover and affirm voters’ choice rather than disregarding voters’ choice for the sake of technicalities”.
Meanwhile, the Presidency and APC have fired back at the former Vice President.
In its reaction to Atiku’s attack on the President and the apex court, the Presidency took a sharp jab at Atiku, saying he went into the February poll “with a fragmented and tattered umbrella.’’
The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga’s response was contained in a statement titled: ‘Time for Atiku Abubakar to finally go away and end his ambition to be President.”
Onanuga added, “There was no way Atiku and the PDP could have won the election with the party platform under which he contested broken into four parts.”
“Atiku’s brand of politics is such that once an electoral process or election does not pave the way for his victory, democracy becomes dysfunctional and must, therefore, be imperilled.
“For him, democracy should either go his way or the highway. The PDP candidate said Nigeria is doomed just because he failed to achieve his ambition. We want to tell Alhaji Atiku that it is only his inordinate ambition to be President that is doomed.”
The Presidency added, “Our institutions must also ensure that corrupt, desperate, self-serving serial losers should not have a space in our democracy. Because if they don’t win the battle, they might burn the nation. We want to advise Atiku that after over three decades of elusive bid for the Presidency of Nigeria, he must now end his unprofitable bid and go away from any venture that will further pollute the political atmosphere and national harmony.”
Also, the National Secretary of the APC, Senator Ajibola Basiru, slammed Atiku, describing him as desperate.
Basiru said, “First, Nigerians need to sympathise with Atiku Abubakar. It is obvious that he is suffering from post-election trauma, going by the statement he gave. How can you grant two world press conferences in three weeks? He had one preceding his misadventure at the Supreme Court, where he pressed to submit fresh evidence and after his loss at the apex court. This shows that his level of desperation has affected his psychological composition.
He said Atiku’s attack on the judiciary because he lost an election showed he did not have regard for the same institution he approached for redress.
“What he said in the statement also showed that he lacked understanding of how the judiciary works and the electoral process in the country. For instance, he said INEC ought to disqualify people when they submit inconsistent credentials. Surprisingly, even as a presidential candidate, Atiku does not know the law has been changed since 2011. INEC does not have the power to disqualify anybody on any ground.”
“The National Assembly had PDP majority members when the law was amended. In the past, INEC had the power to disqualify anybody when they didn’t meet the requirement. But the law has changed since the PDP-led administration and control of the National Assembly. So, Atiku is blaming INEC for what the legislators and his political party had done.
“Again, the fresh evidence he is talking about, it is possible he didn’t listen to what the Supreme Court said. The court said that since you didn’t plead forgery, you cannot bring evidence to discuss it. Paragraph 146 of his petition stated that the second respondent was not qualified. He didn’t mention anyone in particular. Does he want the Supreme Court to accept evidence of a case not pleaded? His lawyer perhaps didn’t tell him that any fact not pleaded amounts to no issue.’’
