Cardinal John Onaiyekan, the archbishop emeritus of the Archdiocese of Abuja, stated that he is awaiting the court's announcement of the true winner of the 2023 presidential election.
Recall that on March 1, the Independent National Electoral Commission named Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress as the winner after receiving 8,794,726 votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar received 6,101,533 and 6,984,520 votes, respectively.
The results of the presidential and state elections are being challenged in various courts.
In accordance with Section 135(2) of the 1999 Constitution, the President shall resign from office four years after taking the Oath of Allegiance and the Oath of Office, which implies that he must hand over authority to the president-elect.
The same holds true for different political positions.
In an interview with Channels Television on Thursday, Onaiyekan stated that no oaths should be taken while cases contesting the outcome of an election are pending in court.
In his words, “There are cases in court that have not been disposed of. That is why we are in an anomalous situation. We have a president-elect whose election is being challenged and the court is handling it.
“I’m still waiting for the court to tell me who won the election. It doesn’t make much sense to be swearing in people when they are still in court."
He claimed that the election procedure needs to be revised.
It is unfortunate, he continued, that the court's decision-making process is taking longer than it should.
According to him, the entire election process in the nation needs to be thoroughly evaluated in order to make it easier for winners to emerge who would carry out the wishes of the people.
The bishop argued that many politicians do not uphold democracy and that they rigged elections because "they want power by all means."
However, he urged Tinubu's incoming administration to pay attention to the aspirations of Nigerian youths
Content created and supplied by: Empirewriter (via Opera News )
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