APC campaign petitions NBC over Datti’s ‘no president-elect’ remark

The All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council has asked the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to penalise Channels Television over comments credited to Datti Baba-Ahmed, vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP).

Last week, while speaking on Politics Today, a Channels Television programme, Baba-Ahmed asked Olukayode Ariwoola, the chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), not to swear in Bola Tinubu as president.

The LP vice-presidential candidate said there is no president-elect because Tinubu did not allegedly meet the requirements of the constitution.

Section 134 (2) of the 1999 constitution says: “A candidate for an election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected where, there being more than two candidates for the election: (a) he has the highest number of votes cast at the election; and (b) he has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”

The declaration of Tinubu as the president-elect despite not getting 25 percent of the votes cast in FCT has continued to generate debates.

In the letter dated March 30, Bayo Onanuga, the APC campaign council’s media director, said Baba-Ahmed’s comments are not only “divisive, subversive, but also inciting and inflammatory”.

“The guest on the programme in question Datti Baba-Ahmed said the president of the country Muhammadu Buhari should not swear in the president-elect because he did not score 25% vote in the FCT, being one of the prerequisites for being declared winner,” the media director said.

“This is a subversive statement since the matter is before the tribunal and is among the issues submitted in the petition to the courts for adjudication.

“Therefore until and unless the court rules otherwise, the status quo is the INEC position as declared in the final results.

“It is our considered opinion that the guest Datti Baba-Ahmed was not only provocative but also inciting the public and the LP followers to delegitimize the outcome of the elections but also propagate resistance against the incoming duly elected administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shettima.”

The APC campaign alleged that Channels TV breached the NBC rules by allowing Datti to make the remarks.