A former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Dr. Olisa Agbakoba on Tuesday said that there is no constitutional process that can delay the inauguration of president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
After being declared as the winner of the February 25th presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu faces different law suits from fellow contestants challenging his victory.
According to the INEC, Tinubu had 8,794,726 votes, the flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar finished second with 6,984,520 votes and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) came third with 6,101,533 votes.
Atiku and Obi thereafter took Tinubu to court with some other parties such as the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) also filing a petition against the president-elect.
Agbakoba, however, said that while the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) sitting in Abuja deals with the petitions, there is no constitutional process to delay the swearing-in scheduled for May 29.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria said the inauguration of Tinubu is bound to happen under constitutional process despite the petitions against the President-Elect at the Tribunal.
“It is important to state that the inauguration of Mr Bola Tinubu on 29 May 2023 is bound to happen under our constitutional process,” he said.
“While the election tribunal deals with the petitions there is no constitutional process to delay the inauguration on 29 May. We need to obey the rule of constitutionalism.”
