The INEC declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu winner of Nigeria’s presidential elections last night, despite many accusations of rigging. He addressed his supporters and appealed for reconciliation with his rivals. Is unity possible in this context?
Kunle Lawal, Executive Director of Electoral College Nigeria, spoke with News editor Bridget Ugwe.
“It will be inevitable that this has been taken to court already, or it’s on its way to court, if not already taken to court by the two leading opposition candidates : that’s the candidate Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party.
It is beyond comprehension that some anomalies were allowed and the winner was still announced. There were a lot of hotspots of violence, people being troncated or disenfranchised. There were even situations where reports were given for polling units, where no voting happened but the election results were there.
Nigerians are focusing on the product of the election, if the process isn't credible enough the outcome can't be the choice of the people #NigeriaDecides2023 #KL
— Kunle Lawal (@kunlelawal) February 28, 2023
So looking into the next 24 hours will actually be very serious. And Nigeria is quite tense now on all sides. I believe it is right for the APC candidate Bola Tinubu to stretch out a branch of peace. But peace can never be. Like I said earlier, but peace can never be gotten on such electoral misnomers, and I think the Nigerian people are very hurt right now.
So I think there will be clearly a court case, or lots of court cases. INEC has 7 days in which the tribunal has to review the election I can recall according to the Electoral Act 20.22, so we need to watch and see what happens that.”
By Bridget UGWE
