Mr. Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, has challenged President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s win before the Tribunal.
Peter Obi had requested in his appeal that Bola Tinubu not be sworn in because he had not followed the law. Lawyer Nkoyo Toyo, a former member of the House of Representatives and former Nigerian Ambassador to Ethiopia, claims that the Labour Party and its candidate are concerned that Tinubu would hijack the whole process if he is elected President.
She said that this is why so many Nigerians are urging the Judiciary to rule on the case as soon as possible, in order to give the public confidence that the Judiciary is capable of delivering justice. Although she underlined that the President-elect’s inauguration cannot be postponed since if he loses at the Tribunal, he would appeal to the Supreme Court.
”Any declaration the court makes may not prevent the inauguration, but the key is that there will be a feeling of ownership of the court,” she added. Peter Obi and the Labour Party are concerned that if Bola Tinubu is elected President, he would control the judiciary and the whole process.
But if they know that the court will be insulated from all of this, and that the court may come forward at any point and make a decision regardless of who is in the chair.
The key is getting a decision out early enough to say, ‘This is where the law stands, and before the questions concerning evidence come before the court, we would have already generated a feeling in the minds of the people that the Judiciary is in a good position to give justice to the people