Nigerians deserve explanation for threatening anarchy if removed from office, Human Rights Writers tell Tinubu

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria (HURIWA), has reportedly tasked President Ahmed Bola Tinubu to offer an explanation to over 200 million Nigerians about the veiled ‘threat’ of ‘chaos’ and ‘anarchy’ made by his lawyers to the Presidential Election Tribunal if his election is annulled.

This was made known in a statement made available to newsmen by the National Coordinator of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko.

According to the rights group, President Bola Tinubu had reportedly warned that nullifying the February 25 election that produced him as President because he did not score 25% of the lawful votes cast during the election in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) could “lead to absurdity, chaos, anarchy and alteration of the very intention of the legislature.

Besides, Tinubu told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that the two petitions filed by candidates of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi and his counterpart in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, seeking the nullification of his victory at the February 25 presidential election, are not only novel but not familiar with the country’s electoral laws.

Tinubu’s submissions were contained in his final written address against the two petitions pending at the PEPC.

The five-member panel had, on July 5, given the respondents in the two separate petitions 10 days to file their written address, while the petitioners were given seven days to reply.

The panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani gave the order shortly after Tinubu, Shettima and the All Progressive Congress (APC) closed their defence in the two petitions, as it would be recalled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had closed its case a day earlier.

Reacting to the widely published written address made by a team of lawyers for President Tinubu in which some obnoxious, vexatious, prejudicial words such as ‘chaos’ and ‘anarchy’ were applied, HURIWA stated that it will be wrong if the President, who had admonished those who were returned by INEC as number two and three during the disputed poll to go to Court, is seen threatening ‘fire’ and ‘brimstone’ if his victory is annulled, that is assuming without conceding that those words in the final written address actually meant physical threat of upheavals.

“This is why it will be urgent and right that President Tinubu personally finds out from his lawyers the import of those words and to explain to Nigerians what he, the President, actually meant in that written address to the Presidential Election Tribunal,” HURIWA affirmed.

HURIWA stated that it will amount to a direct attack on the independence of the Judiciary as empowered by section 6 of the Nigerian Constitution if President Tinubu is actually threatening Nigerians with ‘chaos’ and ‘anarchy’, should his victory be declared a nullity by a competent Judicial body. HURIWA also said those words may be misconstrued as veiled blackmail and intimidation against the judiciary.