By Okelo Madukaife
The views expressed by the spokesman of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Segun Sowunni on Channels Television recently, as it affects the grounds of legitimacy of the Tinubu-led central government, must make sense only to some wishful thinkers in the crumpling house of Peoples DemocraticParty (PDP).
To right-thinking citizens of Nigeria who wish the country well, and the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended, there is no specified number of votes, as a fraction of the total number of registered voters that confers legitimacy.
We do not consider it proper that Sowunmi should exploit the ignorance of a section of his audience instead of enlightening them.
Therefore scoring approx 8.8 million votes, in an election, borne out of an elaborate lawful process does not put President Tinubu in any legitimacy challenge, provided he scored the highest number of votes among the contestants (plurality) and has scored 25% of votes cast in 25 states,inclusive of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), for this purpose (spread).
Even then, Tinubu has more votes to add from votes lost to human errors.
One major feature of the said constitution as it is now is that it does not demand majority votes for a president to emerge,except where there are two contestants,as is not the case.
The 2023 presidential election had 18 contestants and four competitive front runners.
Any day Nigerians by popular demand wish to amend this section of the law to emplace majority votes when there are many strong contenders, and see the need for a run-off election where no candidate scored above 50%, the laws will be amended.
For now, no such condition has been imposed and Sowunmi would be well advised to accept defeat when he and his party have lost.
In fact the one who would have had legitimacy issues,had he been declared winner , would have been the one who is a citizen of cameroun whose kinsman was in charge of affairs in the last eight years.
His comparison of votes compared by Muhammadu Buhari and Tinubu is also neither here nor there. Time, reforms in electoral laws and the introduction of multiple technologies including the Bimodal Voter Identification System (BVAS),has made all the difference in accuracy to the point that should attract the commendation of Sowunmi if his views were objective.
We expect the subject of the reference interview to understand that the Voter figures on the Nigerian register are bloated and therefore requires thorough cleaning.
However, we understand that issues generated within a near- comatose PDP may no longer sustain interest on a 30-minute television program, but APC is not available as a cannon fodder.
Instead, Sowunmi and PDP should be worried about the herrmorage of membership in PDP, with APC as destination in many subnational levels. even while meeting all manner of resistance .
Therefore, if Sowunmi is interested in aspiring to make history as the first PDP National Chairman to complete a constitutional tenure,he would have our distant sympathy, but the punching bags ahead of him should be his myriad of coaspirants ,in which no APC member can possibly be found.
He and his ilk would be very well advised to stop hitting their heads on brickwalls as President Tinubu-led government has come to stay, while its legitimacy is unassailed.
...Okelo Madukaife is the State Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Anambra State Chapter. NNL.
