Why Atiku, Obi, and APM’s petitions against Tinubu were denied by the Tribunal (PEPT)
Why Atiku, Obi, and APM’s petitions against Tinubu were denied by the Tribunal (PEPT)
HIGHLIGHTS OF JUDGMENT
Obi and LP were unsuccessful in demonstrating vote-rigging and excessive voting.
Obi’s petition has ambiguous, unclear, nebulous, and lacking specific materials portions.
…Obi duly nominated by LP
Shettima has been duly nominated for vice president by the APC.
No proof exists that Tinubu was found guilty of narcotics trafficking in the US.
Tinubu hasn’t been charged, charged, tried, or convicted in the US.
The confiscation of $460,000 is a civil matter and not a result of a conviction.
…INEC cannot be made to electronically submit election results.
Abuja is similar to other states in terms of 25% of the vote.
By John Alechenu, Ikechukwu Nnochiri, Dapo Akinrefon, Olasunkanmi Akoni, and Innocent Anaba
LAGOS — In a historic ruling, the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, dismissed the petitions of the Labour Party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, and their candidates challenging the election of President Bola Tinubu, yesterday.
The plea from Mr. Peter Obi of the LP to invalidate Tinubu’s election was denied by the five-person panel, which was chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani.
Additionally, it rejected APM’s appeal to invalidate the president for Senate Kashim Shettima’s invalid nomination as his running mate.
Obi’s petition was rejected.
The Labour Party, LP, and its candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, claimed that the 2023 presidential election had been rigged in favor of President Bola Tinubu, but the PEPC rejected their claim.
In a preliminary judgement, Justice Abba Mohammed of the court ruled that Obi and the LP had not provided sufficient evidence to support their claim that the election on February 25 was marked by overt corruption.
The petitioners claimed that there were irregularities that affected the election, but the court found that they omitted to specify the locations of the alleged violations.
The court observed that although Obi and the LP claimed the election was rigged in 18, 088 polling places throughout the federation, they were unable to specify where those polling places were.
It further concluded that Obi’s claim that President Tinubu and the APC had false results recorded by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was unsupported.
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Additionally, it was decided that the petitioners could not provide the numbers they claimed were slashed from the election results they attained in several parts of the federation, particularly in Ondo, Oyo, Rivers, Yobe, Borno, Tabara, Osun, and Lagos state.
It was decided that the Petitioners had also failed to identify the polling places where there had been excessive voting or the precise numbers of illegitimate votes given to Tinubu by the INEC.
It emphasized the fact that despite Obi and LP’s claims that they would depend on spreadsheets, forensic reports, and expert witness analyses, they did not affix the documents to the petition or serve them on the Respondents as required by law.
The petitioners failed to provide details of the exact polling locations where the incidents occurred, the court ruled, despite the fact that the petition contained significant charges bordering on violence, non-voting, suppression of votes, fraudulent entry of election results, and corrupt acts.
It determined that certain parts of the petition’s claims were “vague, imprecise, ambiguous and lacking of particular materials.”
The petition’s paragraphs 9, 60, 61, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 83, and 89 were therefore struck out by the court.
Obi has a legitimate nomination for the LP.
However, the court rejected the Respondents’ argument that Obi was not legitimately nominated by the LP to run for president.
The Respondents had claimed that Obi joined the LP on May 27, 2022, after leaving the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on May 24, according to the document.
According to the Respondents, Obi was not a legitimate member of the LP as of May 30, 2022, and so was not eligible to vote in the LP’s presidential primary.
They argued that his name could not have been on the LP membership register, which was supposed to be sent in to INEC 30 days prior to the primary election.
In contrast, the court determined that the question of membership is a matter of a political party’s internal affairs and is not subject to adjudication.
It was decided that the LP alone has the authority to decide who is a member, and that the Respondents lacked the legal authority to inquire about Obi’s membership in the LP.
In addition, the court determined that, in contrast to Tinubu and the APC’s claims, the petitioners were not required to support Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who finished second in the election, or his party, the PDP, in the lawsuit.
Atiku and the PDP aren’t required parties to the petition or statutory respondents, the court said.
There is no proof that Tinubu was convicted in the US for cocaine trafficking.
The PEPC also rejected the claim that President Tinubu had been convicted in the USA of a crime related to narcotics trafficking.
According to the court’s lead decision in the joint petition filed by the LP Obi, the $460,000 punishment levied on Tinubu in the US constituted a civil matter based on the evidence that was presented to the court.
It was decided that Tinubu could not be disqualified from running in the presidential election that was held on February 25 since a fine of this size did not equate to a criminal conviction.
The case that resulted in the fine being imposed against President Tinubu, according to Justice Haruna Tsammani, who presided over the five-member panel, “was in the civil docket” of the court in the US, according to a meticulous examination of the materials that were brought before the court.
In contrast to what the Petitioners claimed, he concluded that the issue involved a civil forfeiture procedure against bank funds rather than an action against Tinubu personally.
He referred to these civil forfeiture procedures as a special remedy that targets a piece of property rather than the owner.
The court further ruled that Obi and the LP had failed to demonstrate that Tinubu had ever been charged, accused, tried, or found guilty of a crime in the USA.
The court also took note of the American Embassy’s confirmation, in response to a letter the Inspector General of Police sent in 2003, that Tinubu had no criminal history in its consolidated information center.
It was determined that the US Embassy’s answer and the letter from the IGP are both public records that can be used as evidence.
The court argued that the petitioners failed to present any proof that Tinubu was prosecuted and found guilty of an offense involving dishonesty.
In addition, the court ruled that since 10 years had passed since the aforementioned fine was imposed on Tinubu, it was inadmissible to use it as a justification for Tinubu’s disqualification.
As a result, it denied that part of the petition the LP and Obi filed to overturn President Tinubu’s election.
The petitioners, among other things, contested Tinubu’s eligibility to run for president on the grounds that he had previously been charged with fraud and drug trafficking and fined $460,000 by the Northern District of Illinois’ Eastern Division of the United States District Court.
They argued that under section 137 (1) (d) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, such an indictment constituted a reason for disqualification.
Election results cannot be forced to be transmitted electronically by INEC.
The tribunal ruled that INEC was not required to send election results electronically with regard to the claim that it did not do so in real time on its result viewing webpage for the presidential election.
Tsammani stated: “The Electoral Act 2022 does not contain any provisions for the electronic transmission of election results.”
Regarding the method of transmitting election results, the tribunal stated that INEC is free to specify the method it wishes to adopt.
“In accordance with Sections 52 and 65 of the Electoral Act, INEC is free to impose restrictions on how results may be communicated. The court ruled that INEC cannot be forced to transmit results online.
Abuja is not different from other states on 25% of the votes.
The Federal Capital Territory, or FCT, Abuja, does not have any unique standing relative to the other 36 states of the union, hence receiving 25% of the votes cast there did not make someone the winner, according to the PEPT.
President Tinubu received 19% of the vote, Atiku Abubakar received 15%, and Peter Obi received around 59% of the votes polled in the Federal Capital Territory.
The panel stated that FCT inhabitants do not enjoy the special benefits that the LP and Obi claimed were available to them.
According to the PEPC, Section 134 (1) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended) states that in order to be declared as duly elected as President of Nigeria, a presidential candidate must receive a majority of the votes cast in a presidential election in which two or more candidates are running for office, as well as at least 25% in two-thirds of the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
According to the tribunal, the petitioners’ reading of Section 134(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution is “totally illogical, if not downright ludicrous.”
Ineffective APM’s complaint against Tinubu
The Allied Peoples Movement, APM, filed a lawsuit to invalidate President Tinubu’s election, but the panel dismissed it in its initial decision as being inept.
According to the court, the pre-election problems that the APM brought up in its appeal could only be resolved by the Federal High Court.
Justice Haruna Tsammani, the panel’s chair, read the decision and upheld the first objections that each Respondent had made in an effort to contest the petition’s legality.
In light of the petition’s focus on President Tinubu’s eligibility to compete in the February 25 presidential election, Justice Haruna remarked that the APM was required to file a lawsuit within 14 days of Tinubu’s APC nomination.
According to him, the APM lacked the locus standi to contest Tinubu’s candidacy because the topic at hand was pre-election-related.
A political party does not have the authority to contest a nomination that was made by another political party, Justice Tsammani further ruled. This was based on an earlier Supreme Court ruling.
He claimed that the 1999 Constitution, as amended, had provisions in sections 131 and 237 that dealt with a candidate’s eligibility or ineligibility for running in an election.
The court took notice of the APM’s primary complaint, which focused on Kashim Shettima’s purportedly invalid nomination as Tinubu’s running mate.
In light of the alleged invalid nomination of the 4th Respondent (Shettima), it is evident that the claim of qualification is a non-qualification of the 3rd Respondent (Tinubu). It is a pre-election concern, the judge ruled.
He added that the Electoral Act of 2022’s provision 84(3) prohibited political parties from requiring candidates to meet prerequisites unless the constitution specifically permits it.
According to the court, the problem of eligibility and nomination of a candidate for an election was resolved by sections 65, 66, 106, 107, 131, 137, 185, and 187 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
It was decided that the constitutional provisions of sections 131 and 137 could no longer be invoked to contest a candidate’s eligibility in cases where an election had already been held and the results announced.
The court ruled that because the APM did not object to President Tinubu’s appointment within the legally permitted time frame, its lawsuit had expired.
It was decided that only the constitution itself may disqualify a candidate from running for office if the constitution had already qualified them for the position.
The court determined that the APM’s contention of multiple nomination was not a legally cognizable basis for disqualification.
Furthermore, the court ruled that it did not understand why Mr. Ibrahim Masari was included in the petition as the fifth respondent because his situation would not be impacted by the decision made in the case.
As a result, it removed his name from the petition.
The APM stated that Tinubu’s candidacy was invalidated by the withdrawal of Mr. Masari, who had been initially nominated as the APC’s vice-presidential candidate, in light of Sections 131(c) and 142 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, in its appeal with the file number CA/PEPC/04/2023.
The party contended that there was a lag of roughly three weeks between the time Masari, who was listed as the petition’s fifth respondent, announced his intention to withdraw, the time his alleged nomination was actually withdrawn, and the moment Tinubu allegedly replaced him with Senator Kashim Shettima.
It went on to say that Tinubu’s candidacy had ended when he proposed Shettima as Masari’s replacement.
The petitioner claims that at the time Tinubu announced Shettima as his running mate, “he was no longer in a position, constitutionally speaking, to nominate a running mate since he had ceased to be a presidential candidate of the second respondent having regard to the provisions of section 142 of the 1999 Constitution.”
The APM argued that Masari’s initial nomination activated the joint ticket principle established in the Constitution, highlighting the fact that his subsequent withdrawal rendered the joint ticket illegitimate.
LP disagrees with the decision and considers what to do next.
The LP, meantime, has disagreed with the PEPC’s ruling maintaining Tinubu’s declaration as the victor of the election on February 25, 2023.
Soon after the court delivered its ruling, the party’s national publicity secretary, Obiora Ifoh, briefed the public in Abuja on the party’s position.
According to Ifoh, “The Labour Party watched with dismay and trepidation the dismissal of petitions by the five-member panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani today (yesterday). We reject the outcome of the judgment in its entirety because justice was not served and it did not reflect the law and the will of the people.
Nigerians were there for the February 25, 2023, electoral heist, which was widely denounced, but the Tribunal, in its wisdom, refused to acknowledge it.
Democracy is at stake, and we won’t give up until the will of the people is realized.
We applaud our legal team’s tenacity for bravely exposing the fury of our system.
“We cannot help but mourn for Nigeria’s democracy, but we will not give up on Nigeria.
“After consulting with our attorneys and receiving the Certified True Copy of the verdict, the party’s position will be stated in detail.
“We call on all supporters of democracy to stay determined and upbeat because a new Nigeria is achievable.”
Court’s decision is a great development, says Tinubu
President Bola Tinubu hailed the ruling as a positive development in his reaction to it yesterday.
In addition, Tinubu reassured Nigerians of his renewed and refocused commitment to realizing his goal of creating a united, tranquil, and successful country.
The decision will motivate him to serve Nigerians, according to Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Mr. Ajuri Ngelale.
According to the statement, President Tinubu “welcomes the Tribal’s verdict with a profound sense of grave responsibility and readiness to serve all Nigerians, irrespective of all varied political persuasions, beliefs, and tribal identities.”
“The President commends the five-member bench, presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, for their professionalism, thoroughness, and diligence in interpreting the law.
The President asserts that, at a time when other parts of the continent’s democratic systems are being put to the test, Nigeria’s legal system and the Tribunal’s unimpeded performance of their duties, as evidenced by the panel’s exclusive respect for the merits of the petitions submitted, further reflect the advancement of Africa’s largest democracy and the rule of law.
“The President thinks that Nigeria’s democratic credentials have been confirmed by the Presidential Candidates and Political Parties that have properly exercised their rights by participating in the 2023 general elections and the judicial process that followed.
“The President asks his brave competitors to instill in their supporters the belief that the spirit of patriotism would always be placed above political concerns, resulting in support for our Government to raise the standard of living for all Nigerians.
“Once again, President Tinubu thanks Nigerians for the mandate granted to him to serve our nation while vowing to fulfill and exceed their expectations, by the grace of God Almighty and by extremely dedicated hard work with the team that has been put in place for that specific purpose,” he said.
Sanwo-Olu: It’s a triumph for democracy.
Yesterday, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu congratulated President Bola Tinubu on his victory at the Presidential Election Petition Court, calling it “another well-deserved triumph.”
The All Progressives Congress, or APC, put a lot of effort into achieving the success it did in the presidential election on February 25, according to a statement from his chief press secretary, Mr. Gboyega Akosile.
“The ruling in favor of the President by the Presidential Election Petition Court is consoling, and it also confirms the preferences of the over eight million Nigerians who turned out to vote for the APC and President Tinubu.
“Democracy and the rule of law are beautiful things, and we are seeing that today. In a referendum in February of this year, more than eight million Nigerians chose Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to lead the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Time for serious thought—ADEGBORUWA, SAN
In a statement yesterday, activist and attorney Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN, added: “Given the severe realities facing us as a nation and the condition of the law, the Presidential Election Petition Court’s decision was not entirely unexpected.
“It is quite challenging to conduct elections successfully due to the presumption of regularity of elections and the principle of substantial conformance.
The petitioners in this case had a virtually enormous burden to overcome in order to overturn the election. Even worse, INEC behaved as if it had a stake in the outcome of the proceedings by essentially fighting the petitioners to a standstill.
“Honestly, I don’t think anyone—especially the attorneys—expected a different verdict from the one that was announced in Abuja today. It was unnecessary for there to be any tension. This is why we continually stress that anyone seeking to bring about a real shift in our election history should concentrate their attention on the electoral umpire.
Anyone designated the “winner” will typically coast to victory in the election tribunal without first unbundling INEC to make it more independent, non-partisan, and effective.
“Today’s decision should prompt everyone, notably the parties involved in the case, their attorneys, and all supporters of democracy, to consider soberly. Within a couple of days following the election, the petitions may have been settled solely on legal issues.
“With the fabric of our democratic engagements appearing to have been hijacked and corrupted, there cannot be a true win in the court’s decision of the legal concerns. Going back in time to analyze the electoral process and the litigation that followed it is part of the lesson in this process. There cannot be a credible election in Nigeria with INEC as it is currently set up.
