By Emmanuel Ogebe
Practically three months after the February presidential elections, INEC still has only 96% of the results meant to have been uploaded in “real-time” on its IREV portal.
At the Election Tribunal, petitioners complained that INEC has failed to supply 70% of the election materials ordered by the court over a month ago.
The Tribunal which has 180 days to hear the case hopes to wrap up pre-hearing matters by the end of this month – such as duplicate motions on whether to live broadcast the trial – 60 days after the filing of the petitions.
The APC argued that airing the proceedings would turn the court into a stadium or circus although tribunal proceedings have been aired without input of counsel since 2008.
However, the irony here is that it is INEC which has turned Nigeria into a circus of brazen election criminality and venality in the eyes of the world which the courts are now trying to sanitize.
The bottom line is that this litigation will not be resolved by May 29th, without extraordinary gumption and action by all concerned, in time for a legitimate president-elect to be sworn in.
This is because there are issues with both the Person and the Process of the INEC-Declare – Senator Tinubu.
In addition to his drug-money laundering case in the US years ago, recent revelations show a pattern of continuing money laundering via his children with two multimillion-dollar properties in New York and an $11 million property in the UK.
How will the UK and US look at Nigeria if it swears in someone with a globally visible footprint of such obscene venality?
Already the UK has shown us consistently what it thinks of our fantastically corrupt misrulers with the prosecution of three governors and the recent imprisonment of our former Deputy Senate President no less!
Some years ago, I was consulted by a Nigerian ambassador in North America about his colleague designated plenipotentiary to another North American country.
His adopted son was on trial in the country he was being posted to for raping a citizen of that country.
I told the ambassador that it would be a monumental disaster for him to assume duty in that country as his position would always be linked to the trial whenever it came up in the press. Besides there are diplomatic privileges accorded diplomats’ families which the State Department would likely deny his son further complicating the situation.
My esteemed ambassador friend had the unfortunate duty of having to call his colleague just as he was departing Nigeria so that he should not come to his new post.
If a position as ambassador could be so sensitive how much more that of president?
However, that aside, the primary case against swearing-in is not so much the Person as the Process.
The BBC reported that, in Rivers state a fake INEC collator, presented a fake result for Oyingbo LG giving APC a false victory over LP.
This is hugely significant because when an IREC in Adamawa declared a candidate as governor, INEC itself disowned it, suspended and declared him wanted.
The case of the fake collator is even worse because he is not even a lecturer in the institution he claimed to be from and is actually unknown to INEC! Thus, INEC HQ is guilty in the presidential election of procuring a fake official to produce a fake result in Rivers before it turned around and accused its own REC of the same in Adamawa state.
Furthermore, an addition of votes on INEC’s own IREV show LP won Rivers state contrary to INEC’s fraudulent declaration as reported by both Premium Times and BBC.
This means that INEC’s criminality is on full display before the whole world. How can the presidency of the most populous black nation be anchored on such a gigantic scam?
Then there are the constitutional questions.
APC did not win 25% of Abuja as constitutionally mandated. A president-elect was simply not produced merely on this basis without even going further into how badly botched the elections were.
This is without even delving into the other constitutional question, which is apparent to all but wasn’t raised by any of the petitioners, that Senator Tinubu is not of sound mind as required by the constitution as evidenced by his incoherent campaign blubbering and his multiple foreign medical trips.
On May 29, the constitution provided us a clear pathway out of the monstrous state capture and hijack of 200 million people orchestrated by a mafia don and rogue state actors.
They have dared us to go to court and the court must show that it is not a toothless bulldog as nefarious elements imagine.
Neither an extension of the Buhari regime nor an interim government is justified or legal.
The only legal option is a handover to the Senate President once the president and Vice President’s tenure elapse as provided for in the constitution.
– Emmanuel Ogebe, Esq, is a US-based international human rights lawyer and Nigeria Judiciary expert with the US NIGERIA LAW GROUP Washington.
