Why We Dismissed Atiku, Obi’s Cases – Tribunal
The Presidential Election Petition Court yesterday upheld the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) after dismissing the petitions of Atiku Abubakar (Peoples Democratic Party), Peter Obi (Labour Party) and Chichi Ojei (Allied Peoples Movement).
The five-member panel of justices presided by Justice Haruna Tsammani declared that Tinubu was duly elected.
The justices, in their ruling, which was unanimous and lasted for over 12 hours, said there were serious gaps in the three petitions before the court.
“All the petitions are devoid of merit and are hereby dismissed,” they ruled.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had, on March 1, declared Tinubu winner of the election with 8,794,726 votes as against 6,984,520 by Atiku and 6, 101,533 by Obi.
The tribunal resolved key issues such as the majority of lawful votes, two-third of the votes cast and the FCT, $460,000 forfeiture, double nomination of Shettima, dual citizenship and non-transmission of results.
Earlier, the court had consolidated Atiku, Obi and Ojei’s petitions.
Atiku, Obi failed to prove they scored the majority of lawful votes
The panel ruled that Atiku and Obi failed to specify how they scored the majority of lawful votes in the February 25 presidential election.
Rulings on various aspects of the prayers by the petitioners were read by the justices.
In the lead judgement read by Justice Moses Ugo, the panel said PDP failed to name places where the ballot boxes were snatched, how the BVAS machines were manipulated and the affected polling units where the alleged malpractices took place.
Similarly, Justice Tsammani held that PDP’s allegations of violence, ballot box snatching did not provide videos or evidence, adding that the allegations were criminal and ought to be proved beyond reasonable doubt.
In a similar judgement, Justice Abba Bello Mohammed held that the LP, in its petition, made generic allegations of irregularities, suppression of votes and corrupt practices to rob them of their votes in 18, 088 polling units in states like Rivers, Benue, Lagos, Taraba and Oyo; but failed to specify the polling units affected.
He agreed with the APC and Tinubu that the claim was non-specific, nebulous, vague and speculative.
Justice Mohammed further held that LP also failed to prove the allegations of over-voting against the APC in Oyo, Ekiti and Yobe where they held that the number of votes were more than the numbers accredited by BVAS.
Justice Misitura Bolaji-Yusuf said LP failed to gather sufficient evidence to prosecute its petition, but was fixated on the belief that it won the election and threats on social media.
The panel said the European Union Observer Mission and the ECOWAS reports lacked evidential value to the PDP and LP petitions.
The court also dismissed the ground of the PDP and LP that two-third of votes in 24 states of the federation and the FCT was a requirement to be declared winner of the presidential election.
The panel presided by Justice Tsammani held that the FCT would be treated as though it were one of the states of the federation.
He said the provision of Section 134(2)(b) and Section 299 of the Nigerian Constitution intends that in calculating the two-third of the states of the federation, the FCT would be treated as though it were one of the states.
“If the candidate scores 25 per cent or a quarter of the votes of the 37 states of the federation, FCT inclusive, the presidential candidate shall be deemed to have been duly elected even if he fails to score 25 per cent of the votes in the FCT as the votes of the second respondent (Tinubu),” he said.
