Lead lawyer representing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, has said nullifying the victory of his client could have an adverse effect on the judiciary.
This comes following the controversial debate on the failure of the president to secure 25 % of vote in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during the February 25 presidential election.
For the record, a section of the Nigerian Constitution that said a presidential candidate must score 25% of votes in two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, or Abuja.
To this, Chief Olanipekun alongside his team in their final defence statement to the court said “any other interpretation different from this will lead to absurdity, chaos, anarchy and alteration of the very intention of the legislature.”
“Our courts have always adopted the purposeful approach to the interpretation of our Constitution, as exemplified in a host of decisions,” the team said.
According to the lawyers, Tinubu would still have won the election even if he didn’t score anything in Abuja and one other state, although this was not the argument of petitions, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of Labour Party.
“Even if there was no election in one State (including the FCT), or even if the election of a State/States (including the FCT) is/are voided, the entire election cannot be voided or canceled,” they stated.
