The stage is set for the second round of the presidential election between Asiwaju Ahmed Bola, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the February 25 election (now president-elect), and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, on the one hand, and Tinubu and Mr Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) candidate, on the other.
The first round was fought at the polling booths across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and won by Tinubu.
The result as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) showed that Tinubu won the contest with 8,794,726 votes.
Atiku secured 6,984,520 votes while Obi polled 6,101,533 votes.
Atiku and Obi expectedly rejected the outcome of the contest, vowing to challenge the result in court.
They filed separate ex-parte applications in court on Friday.
The two candidates accused INEC of reneging on its promise to deliver transparent, free, fair and credible elections.
Sunday Vanguard learnt, yesterday, that they and their parties were shopping for highly rated lawyers to handle their cases in court.
Tinubu, on his part, is relying on volunteer senior advocates.
Many members of the voting public, observers as well as concerned citizens had complained about the disenfranchisement of voters, alleged rigging, violence and intimidation, manipulation, under-supply of voting materials, over-voting and ballot box stuffing, among others.
Despite these alleged irregularities, it is assumed that once INEC announced the result of an election, anyone who feels otherwise has an obligation to prove that the results are incorrect by approaching the relevant courts.
Lawyers list grounds upon which the conduct/outcome of an election may be challenged to include: Section 134 (1) of the Electoral Act, 2022 which provides as follows:
(1) An election may be questioned on any of the following grounds –
(a) A person whose election is questioned was, at the time of the election, not qualified to contest the election;
(b) The election was invalid by reason of corrupt practices and non-compliance with the provisions of this Act; or
(c) The respondent was not duly elected by the majority of the lawful votes cast at the election.
A Jos, Plateau State based Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who spoke anonymously to Sunday Vanguard, explained that an election can also be queried on the grounds that it was invalid by reason of corrupt practices or non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act.
“Accordingly, INEC, which is charged with responsibility of conducting elections, is itself regulated, by provisions of the Electoral Act and its Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of Elections”, he said.
“Both the Electoral Act and the Guidelines are meant to be obeyed. INEC has a compelling duty to ensure that the Act and Guidelines are complied with in the conduct of free, fair and credible elections. Any breach is considered as an infringement and can form the basis for an action.”
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