LP chieftain, pensioners differ on extending May 29 inauguration date

As the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) prepares to hear pending petitions, a Labour Party (LP) chieftain, Dr. Alex Chukwuemeka Obiechina, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to shift inauguration of a new administration to June 12.

He said the adjustment would allow for the judiciary to resolve contending issues surrounding actual winner of the February 25 presidential election and collapse the swearing-in with Nigeria’s Democracy Day.

Obiechina recalled how Nigerians celebrated declaration of June 12 as Democracy Day by the current administration, stressing that this year’s poll achieved similar enthusiasm of June 12, 1993.

He, therefore, pleaded with the President to honour his commitment not to interfere with the election by allowing the PEPT to make final declaration on outcome of the election before inauguration of a winner.

Obiechina, who is also former governorship aspirant in Enugu State, said as a stakeholder in the electoral process, he knows the pain of truncating the will of the masses.

In a statement, yesterday, in Abuja, he noted: “The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) affirmed the inconclusive nature of the February 25 presidential election.

“When the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, asked those who rejected declaration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as winner of the election to go to court, he unwittingly acknowledged that his pronouncement was not the final verdict.”

Obiechina argued that swearing in Tinubu when the courts have not exhausted outstanding cases would amount to investing helplessness on the courts, thereby rendering the petitioners’ actions as mere academic exercise.

Obiechina, consequently, advised Buhari against inaugurating a new administration on May 29 to disabuse minds of Nigerians that the presidency was behind the “plot to subvert the expressed will of Nigerian electorate.”

In a related development, Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) South West Zone has deplored alleged plot to postpone the May 29 handover date.

While warning those behind the interim government’s move to bury the idea, the pensioners warned that all must be done to save the country from unnecessary constitutional crisis.

Speaking at the weekend after a zonal meeting in Akure, Ondo State, spokesman for the union, Comrade Olusegun Abatan, appealed to aggrieved individuals and parties to allow the judiciary do justice in the matter.

The pensioners, however, charged Tinubu to formulate policies that would improve living standard of retirees.

Abatan, who doubles as Oyo State Secretary of NUP, pointed out that nothing must alter the inauguration date.

He said: “We also want to appeal to those that are going about, threatening that heavens will fall on May 29 if Tinubu is sworn in as President of Nigeria. Anyone that has any problem about the last election should go to court.

“NUP Southwest Zone will not favour disruption of government by any other means apart from judicial processes. Of all the Presidents produced in Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari has been the most pensioner-friendly in terms of addressing our issues and keeping to constitutional provision that anytime workers’ salaries are increased, pensions are also increased. We thank him for that.

“We are also using this opportunity to appeal to the incoming President, Tinubu, to please take the steps that will make him a pensioner-friendly leader and improve on what President Buhari has done for us.”