An Abuja-based constitutional lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor, has described the planned May 29 swearing-in of the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, as a broad daylight robbery of democratic mandate.
Ejimakor said it’s unconstitutional to swear-in a winner whose victory has not been affirmed by the court.
He said the planned inauguration of a new President on May 29 is neither by the provisions of the Constitution, the Electoral Act or any other written law.
He stated this in a statement he released in Abuja recently.
Ejimakor said “there won’t be any vacuum if a new President is not sworn-in on May 29”, citing Section 135(1)(a) of the Constitution, which states that “a person shall hold the office of President until when his successor in office takes the oath of that office.”
He insisted that even if the current president has served all eight years of his term, the constitution allows him or her to continue in office until the legally recognized president-elect is sworn in, which “could overshot May 29.”
He claimed that if the constitution was rigorously followed, neither the incoming president, Bola Tinubu, nor his runners-up, Atiku Abubakar or Peter Obi, “would be inaugurated as President on May 29 and Nigeria will still have a constitutional President.”
The lawyer said that the May 29 inauguration is not sacrosanct, noting that “many election winners, mostly gubernatorial in nature, had taken their oaths of office after May 29” since 1999.
