President Bola Tinubu marked his hundred days in office last week. Precisely the same time last week, the Presidential Election Tribunal affirmed his presidency in a long, tedious judgement which lasted almost twelve hours. I don’t know if it was fortuitous or planned, but for the President and his Vice, that judgement, coming at the time it did, would have been a most welcome seal of legal approval for a presidency which during its hundred days, had been dogged by snide and outright remarks of illegitimacy. Most lawyers from all sides of the divide slept through the delivery of the judgement and I can understand why. It was hard to listen to the flat, monotonous and sometimes ineloquent delivery and not be lured to sleep. I doubt if anybody, however vested their interests, listened to the judgement in its entirety. Many had suggested a bullet point judgement with the full judgement given thereafter to the legal representatives of the interested parties. But I can also understand why that was not done and why the Tribunal members opted for a full, detailed and public disclosure of their findings. I suspect the judgement was not for the robed men and women in court. It was for the outside world and the sceptics within the country. I have had many encounters with the courts in my years as Editor and Publisher and I have come to appreciate the value of facts backed by evidence and proof. But not so an average person who might need to be educated to understand that nothing is granted you in court outside what is proven before the court. That detailed judgement was therefore for those who are still open minded enough to identify and understand the difference between insinuations and proven facts.

What I still can’t understand however, is a system that legitimizes a candidate whose victory is still going through a process of validation via the courts. It was about a hundred days after the election before candidate Bola Tinubu was sworn in as President. Ideally, all the legal processes that had to do with the election should have been concluded. They were not. It took another hundred days during which he had been allowed to consolidate his hold in office and the power of incumbency had set in before the Tribunal delivered its judgement. Even now, the whole process has not been completed. The option of the Supreme Court annulling his presidency is still there. I don’t think it is fair on the nation to have to live with this uncertainty and the tension it brings. I don’t think it is fair on the aggrieved not to be allowed to move on if they so wish. I don’t think it is fair even on the incumbent to have the judicial ‘Sword of Damocles’ dangling so menacingly over his head for this long. I think something Should be done to seriously shorten the legal process going forward. That said, it does not need a legal mind to know that it would take something of a miracle for the Supreme Court to overturn an Appeal Court decision which based on the evidence before it, had tried to meticulously address most, if not all contending issues around the elections. In other words, it is time to move on as a people and as nation – too much time has been wasted. The petitioners might appreciate this, but are probably being made to push on having been held captive by the emotions and hysterics of some of their supporters who can’t or won’t, accept any verdict that contradicts their long held view.

In every contest, there will always be winners and losers. There will always be people who would cry foul justly or unjustly. There will always be people who would blame their loss on everything and everyone including the umpire however called. These people hardly face up to their own limitations in skill, strategy and prowess. It is okay to be aggrieved. It is okay to look for scapegoats to blame. But it is not okay to be in permanent denial of reality when a contest, however adjudged, is over. It is definitely not okay to seek to throw the baby out with the bath water by trying to sabotage the system. Those who are calling for a coup or a violent take-over of the streets are no longer fighting for democracy. They are now fighting for self-interest and trying to sabotage the system in pursuit of that interest. Three years after the presidential election in the US, some people are still in denial. It is their prerogative. But those who tried to sabotage the system there are today paying a heavy price.

Contrary to what some of my readers feel, I had no horse in the presidential race. My preferred candidate didn’t go past the primaries. Not having an emotional attachment to the candidates has allowed me to be quite dispassionate and objective about the three front runners. Each had his strengths. Each had his weaknesses. Unfortunately, the election itself ended up pulling the country further apart because each ran a campaign that was tainted by either ethnic or religious bias, or both; and because of this, many people pitched their tents on considerations extraneous to competence and a contestant’s ability to make the country pull together in one direction. To these people, it was about religious and ethnic ascendancy. The unity and progress of the country as one people were secondary to this self-gratification. This is why their loss has been so emotional. As a result of which, they promote negativity and gloat at every misfortune of the country. This is why they want a civil disobedience and even a coup. I is amazing and disheartening how many they are. But there are people, though disappointed that their candidate didn’t get there, who still want the best for the country for the sake of their grandchildren if nothing. It is this group that I am addressing. The contest, to all intents and purposes, is over. Let us not waste the next four years pulling the country down. More importantly, let the young not waste their youth. Let them make the best of the opportunities – and limitations - that exist in the country. Optimists they say, see opportunities in limitations while pessimists see limitations in opportunities.

This verdict can be a watershed. It can be a new day. We can pull together or pull apart. Whether we accept it or not, this tussle is assuming an ethnic colouration. It is also heightening our religious differences. This is unfortunate because it didn’t quite start like that. Tearing ourselves apart is not going to help anybody. After all, it is said that we are only as strong as we are united; and as weak as we are divided. We must therefore learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

The failure of Nigeria as a country is not in our interest. Its success is because the green passport is what many of us have.

•Muyiwa Adetiba is a veteran journalist and publisher. He can be reached via titbits2012@yahoo.com

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