Robert Clarke: LP’s petition against Tinubu’s eligibility can never make headway at tribunal

Robert Clarke, a senior advocate of Nigeria, says the petition of the Labour Party (LP) on the ground that Bola Tinubu, president-elect, is not eligible to contest for the presidency cannot make “headway” at the tribunal.

Speaking on Tuesday in an interview with Arise TV, Clarke said the drug trafficking case against Tinubu in the United States “has been settled”.

On March 1, Tinubu, the standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was declared the winner of the presidential election.

Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had 6,984,520, and Peter Obi of the LP polled 6,101,533.

However, the PDP and LP rejected the outcome of the presidential election and approached the tribunal with separate petitions to challenge Tinubu’s victory.

In his petition, Obi submitted that Tinubu “at the time of the (presidential) election was not qualified to contest the election” owing to the payment of “a fine of $460,000 for an offence involving dishonesty, namely narcotics trafficking imposed by the United States District Court” in 1993. 

The petition also stated that Tinubu did not score the two-thirds of votes cast in the federal capital territory during the presidential election.

CLARKE DISAGREES WITH LP

The lawyer argued that it makes no sense for a candidate not to be declared winner of a presidential election over the failure to secure two-thirds of votes cast in the FCT.

“Let me take for instance the Labour Party. They have filed an election petition. Based on, one, Bola Tinubu is not eligible to be voted for,” he said.

“Two, that even if he is eligible to be voted for, he did not get the two-thirds of votes cast in Abuja and that the election was marred with gangsterism and other things. Those are the three elements that the Labour Party has brought forward to the election petition.

“Let me draw from my pool of experience; the first one is that he (referring to Tinubu) was not eligible to contest because he has been found guilty — but it is a non-starter.

“That issue has been settled and it is a non-starter. The LP can never make any headway on that ground. The second ground is that — by virtue of the constitution to win a presidential election, despite getting the highest number of votes, you cannot be declared elected if you did not have two-thirds of votes cast in 36 states and Abuja.

“The question that would be considered by the tribunal is –what constitutes two-thirds of the 36 states in Nigeria and Abuja? How do you construct the word ‘and’?

“Do you take 36 states first and then take Abuja and say for you to be elected you must have two-thirds of votes in 36 states and two-thirds of votes in the federal capital territory? That is the view of the Labour Party, which I don’t agree with.

“Look at the scenario; If Tinubu had won two-thirds of the 36 states and failed to win two-thirds of Abuja, does that make sense? Does that give any good reason for democracy to survive? No.”