A Constitutional lawyer and Human Rights Activist, Dr. Tunji Abayomi, has dismissed insinuations in some quarters that there will be a rerun presidential election.
Abayomi, therefore opined the upshot of the legal battle between the Presidential Candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress in the last general election, President Bola Tinubu and his counterparts in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, would not lead to a rerun owing to facts.
“When you look critically on some issues raised by the opposition Candidates, any elementary legal mind will understand that it is an exercise in futility”, the lawyer noted.
Abayomi who stated this on Thursday in an interview with newsmen in Akure, the Ondo State Capital, maintained that both the PDP and APC have no case.
"For example, a drug barron can pay for my services as lawyer, the law can only go after the money and not me because, i was not a bad person or involved in his business. So, separate bad money from good people, but when I am a bad person, you will charge me to court, I will take the plea, tried, then convicted and forfeiture will follow", he argued.
On the issue of two third in the Federal Territory, Abuja, Abayomi noted that the Constitution has resolved that in a case of Waziri Ibrahim against Shagari in 1983, it was resolved that "You treat Abuja, Federal Territory as a State. So, you don't treat Abuja more than any State in the Federation.
"But a lot of people confuse the issue when they talk of Abuja Federal Territory. It is a mere nomenclature like Ondo, Kano, Calabar or Edo. The focus is not Federal Territory, the focus is on the voters and now people forget something that Federal government has no voters, only state and local governments have, that is why the Constitution turn the capital Territory to State so as to account for the voters in the area.
"No voter in Nigeria can have more value than other voters in other States. We cannot treat unequal to be equal. The constitution has resolved that Abuja cannot be treated more than a state or less than a State.
While speaking on the corruption and noncompliance with the Electoral Act, the Constitutional lawyer said, “if you want to prove that election should be invalidated, in this case, you must show some substantial noncompliance with the law. I align with the position of the leading lawyer of President Bola Tinubu, Chief Wole Olanipekun that what the opposition Presidential Candidates of LP and PDP put before the Court were mere fiction without any proof and I share his position.
However, Abayomi advised President Tinubu to think deeply before appointing his ministers, adding that he must allot quality time so as to appoint the best
