Court cases won’t stop President Buhari’s handover to President-Elect, Tinubu — FG

Despite petitions filed by the presidential candidates of the opposition parties to challenge the results of the 2023 presidential election, President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has promised a smooth transition of power to the new administration to be led by ‘president-elect’, Bola Tinubu.

“On May 29th, there would be a peaceful formal transfer of power to the new President,” Boss Mustapha, chairman of the transition committee, has said.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which conducted the presidential election declared Tinubu the winner, having polled a total of 8,794,726 to defeat his closest rivals and candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, who polled 6,984, 520 and 6,101,533 respectively.

Meanwhile, Atiku and Obi have filed petitions at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, to challenge the outcome of the poll. However, Mustapha told journalists in Abuja on Tuesday that the litigation would not prevent the handover ceremony from taking place.

According to him, “all litigation, whether resolved or not, will not in any way stop the process”. He added that Buhari will not stay beyond the time allowed by the constitution. “The security committee has the responsibility to ensure that nothing happens to truncate the transition process. Nigerians are very law-abiding people,” he said.

Mustapha said, “there are provided avenues for those” who lost in the election “to make whatever legal inquiry they want to make but the process would continue unabated”. We would not create another constitutional crisis; on May 29, the handing over will take place,” he assured.