According to Daniel Bwala, spokesman for the Atiku/Okowa campaign group, Bola Ahmed Tinubu's Supreme Court victory will be difficult. Asiwaju appointed over 50 lawyers to fight his case in court. Bwala stated that the former governor of Lagos State is under pressure because the INEC disregarded its own set of rules. He also revealed that when the attention of INEC chairman was drawn to the electoral act, he misinterpreted it.
While Asiwaju's failure to win the FCT is likely to be a source of contention, he claims that failing to receive 25% in the state would be a major setback for him. The lawyer also claimed that Tinubu was declared the winner because the INEC Chairman misinterpreted the law. He stated that the legislation made it clear that if there were any problems, the commission has to amend the issues before making the result announcement.
"The procedure that resulted in the announcement of the election result was not in accordance with the provisions of the electoral act," he stated. Section 65, in particular, states that if problems occur at the polling place as a result of the elections, the coalition may still continue, that the commission should resolve the problems before issuing an official statement within a week.
During the coalition, the problem was raised with the INEC Chairman, who regrettably misinterpreted that portion of the law and even promised to look into it after the announcement in seven days, which he never did. Finally, INEC was questioned previous to this election about its plans if there is no clear winner, are you prepared for a rerun? He said yes and cited an example.
Furthermore, section 134 of the constitution makes it clear that the winner of the election cannot be declared if a candidate gets a majority of the vote but falls short of the necessary 25% in the FCT. Tinubu will have a difficult time in court because, as of now, INEC is aware that the winner did not obtain 25% of the vote".
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