PEPT: Why Atiku, Obi, APM’s petitions against Tinubu failed — Tribunal

PEPT: Tribunal explains why Atiku, Obi, and APM’s petitions against Tinubu were denied.
PEPT: Tribunal explains why Atiku, Obi, and APM’s petitions against Tinubu were denied.
JUDGMENT SUCCESSIVES
Obi, LP failed to demonstrate vote tampering or overvoting
Obi’s petition has some unclear, hazy, nebulous, and devoid of specific materials passages.
…Obi duly proposed by LP
Shettima is a legitimately nominated vice presidential contender for the APC.
There is no proof that Tinubu was convicted of narcotics trafficking in the US.
Tinubu has never been charged, arraigned, prosecuted, or found guilty in the US.
…the confiscation of $460,000 is a civil matter, not a finding of guilt.
It is not possible to compel INEC to deliver election results electronically.
…On 25% of the vote, Abuja is no different from other states.

by John Alechenu, Ikechukwu Nnochiri, Olasunkanmi Akoni, Dapo Akinrefon, and Innocent Anaba

LAGOS — In a historic ruling, the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, yesterday rejected the petitions filed by the Labour Party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, as well as the candidates they were running for office, to challenge the election of President Bola Tinubu.

The case filed by Mr. Peter Obi of the LP to invalidate Tinubu’s election was rejected by the five-person panel, which was chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani.

Additionally, it denied APM’s motion to disqualify the president for nominating Senate Kashim Shettima as his running partner.

Dismissal of Obi’s petition

The Labour Party, LP, and Mr. Peter Obi, their candidate, claimed that President Bola Tinubu was the beneficiary of a fraud in the 2023 presidential election. The PEPC rejected this claim.

Obi and the LP failed to provide sufficient evidence to support their claim that the election on February 25 was marred by obvious electoral fraud, the court ruled in its preliminary judgement, which was given by Justice Abba Mohammed.

The petitioners claimed that there were anomalies in the election, but the court found that they lacked particular information on the locations of the alleged violations.

The court observed that despite Obi and the LP’s claims that there were 18, 088 manipulated voting places throughout the federation, they were unable to identify them.

It further ruled that Obi’s claim that President Tinubu and the APC had false results recorded by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was unfounded.

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Furthermore, the court ruled that the petitioners were unable to provide the numbers they claimed were slashed from the election results they obtained in other federation states, particularly in the states of Ondo, Oyo, Rivers, Yobe, Borno, Tabara, Osun, and Lagos.

The court ruled that the petitioners had also failed to identify the polling places where there had been excessive voting or the precise number of illegal votes that the INEC had given Tinubu credit for.

It emphasized that despite Obi and LP’s claims that they would depend on spreadsheets, forensic reports, and expert analyses of their expert witnesses, they failed to serve the Respondents with the documents as required by law or attach them to the petition as they should have.

The petitioners failed to provide details on the exact polling places where the occurrences occurred, according to the court, despite the petition’s significant allegations of violence, non-voting, vote suppression, fraudulent election results entry, and corrupt acts.

It determined that a number of the petition’s allegation-containing sections were “vague, imprecise, ambiguous, and devoid of particular materials.”

As a result, the court invalidated the petition’s paragraphs 9, 60, 61, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 83, and 89.

Obi is a legitimate candidate for the LP.

But the court rejected the Respondents’ argument that the LP had no right to legitimately nominate Obi to run for president.

It mentioned that the Respondents had claimed that Obi joined the Liberal Party (LP) on May 27, 2022, after leaving the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on May 24, 2022.

The Respondents claimed that as of May 30, 2022, Obi was not a legitimate member of the LP and was therefore ineligible to vote in that party’s presidential primary.

They claimed that it was impossible for his name to be listed in the LP membership register, which was supposed to be submitted to INEC 30 days prior to the primary election.

However, the court found in its decision that the question of membership is a matter of a political party’s internal affairs, which are not subject to the law.

The court ruled that only the LP has the authority to decide who is a member of the organization, adding that the Respondents lacked the legal authority to inquire about Obi’s membership in the LP.

In addition, the court determined that the Petitioners were not required to support Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who finished second in the election, or his party, the PDP, despite claims made by Tinubu and the APC to the contrary.

It concluded that neither Atiku nor the PDP are required parties to the petition or statutory respondents.

There is no proof that Tinubu was convicted of narcotics trafficking in the US.
The PEPC also rejected the claim that President Tinubu had been found guilty of drug trafficking in the United States of America, USA.

The court determined that the $460,000 punishment levied on Tinubu in the US constituted a civil matter based on the information presented to it in its lead judgment in the joint lawsuit filed by the LP Obi.

It was decided that Tinubu could not be barred from running in the February 25 presidential election since a fine of this size did not equate to a criminal conviction.

The case that resulted in the fine against President Tinubu “was in the civil docket” of the court in the US, according to Justice Haruna Tsammani, who presided over the five-member panel.

He concluded that, in contrast to the Petitioners’ assertion, the case included a civil forfeiture procedure against bank funds and not an action against Tinubu personally.

Such civil forfeiture actions, according to him, are a special remedy that focus on a piece of property rather than the owner.

No criminal history against Tinubu in the US 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 observed that the American Embassy certified there was no criminal record against Tinubu in its consolidated information center in response to a letter the Inspector General of Police wrote in 2003.

It was decided that the letter from the IGP and the US Embassy’s reply were both public papers that could be used as evidence.

The petitioners, according to the court, failed to present any proof that Tinubu was prosecuted and found guilty of a crime involving dishonesty.

Additionally, the court ruled that Tinubu’s fine could not be used as a legitimate reason for seeking his disqualification because ten years had passed since the fine was levied against him.

As a result, it denied that part of the petition the LP and Obi submitted 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 found guilty of dishonesty and drug trafficking and fined $460,000 by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Case No: 93C 4483.

They argued that such an indictment qualified as a disqualifying circumstance under section 137(1)(d) of the 1999 Constitution as amended.

It is not possible to require INEC to transmit election results electronically.

The tribunal stated that INEC was not required to send election results electronically with regard to the issue of it failing to transmit the presidential election results electronically real-time on its result viewing page.

The Electoral Act of 2022 does not contain any provisions for the electronic transmission of election results, according to Tsammani.

The panel stated that INEC is free to specify the mode it plans to utilize when transmitting election results.

“Under the terms of Sections 52 and 65 of the Electoral Act, INEC is free to impose restrictions on the distribution of election results. The court ruled that INEC cannot be forced to electronically transmit results.

On 25% of the votes, Abuja is no different from other states.

The Federal Capital Territory, or FCT, Abuja, does not have a special status that distinguishes it from the other 36 states of the federation, according to the PEPT, so receiving 25% of the votes there does not make a candidate the winner.

In the Federal Capital Territory, Peter Obi received around 59 percent of the votes; President Tinubu received 19%; and Atiku Abubakar received 15%.

The panel asserted that FCT residents do not have any unique privileges as the petitioners alleged in response to the required assertions made by the LP and Obi.

The PEPC claims that in order to meet the requirements of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended), a presidential candidate must receive a majority of the votes cast in a presidential election in which two or more candidates are running, as well as at least 25% in two-thirds of the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The petitioners’ reading of Section 134(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, according to the tribunal, is “totally illogical, if not downright ludicrous.”

APM’s complaint against Tinubu is ineffective

In its initial decision, the panel dismissed the case the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, sought to invalidate President Tinubu’s election as being unfounded.

The court decided that the pre-election problems presented by the APM in its petition could only be resolved by the Federal High Court.

All of the Respondents submitted initial objections to the petition’s competence, which Justice Haruna Tsammani, the panel’s chairman, upheld in reading the decision.

In light of the petition’s focus on President Tinubu’s eligibility to compete in the February 25 presidential election, Justice Haruna observed that the APM was required to file a lawsuit within 14 days of Tinubu’s APC nomination.

He maintained that the APM lacked locus standi to contest Tinubu’s nomination because the subject touched on a pre-election affair.

Furthermore, Justice Tsammani ruled that a political party does not have the authority to contest a nomination that was made by another political party, as the Supreme Court had previously determined.

According to him, the 1999 Constitution, as amended, provides provisions for the qualification or disqualification of candidates in an election in sections 131 and 237.

The court observed that Kashim Shettima’s alleged nomination as Tinubu’s running partner was allegedly invalid.

“It is obvious that the 4th Respondent’s (Shettima) alleged invalid nomination is the basis for the claim of non-qualification of the 3rd Respondent (Tinubu). It is an election-related issue, the judge ruled.

In addition, he claimed that the Electoral Act of 2022’s section 84(3) prohibited political parties from requiring candidates to meet prerequisites unless the constitution specifically permits it.

Sections 65, 66, 106, 107, 131, 137, 185, and 187 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, the court claimed, resolved the question of a candidate’s eligibility and nomination for an election.

It was decided that a candidate’s eligibility could no longer be contested on the grounds of sections 131 and 137 of the Constitution in cases where an election had already been held and the results announced.

The court ruled that the APM’s case had expired since it had not objected to President Tinubu’s appointment within the legally permitted time frame.

The court ruled that once the constitution has already qualified a candidate for an election, no other law—not even the constitution—can disqualify them.

According to the court, the APM’s proposal of a double nomination was not a legally cognizable reason for disqualification.

Furthermore, the court ruled that it did not understand why Mr. Ibrahim Masari was listed as the petition’s fifth respondent given that the outcome of the case would not in any way effect him.

It therefore removed his name from the petition.

With regard to Sections 131(c) and 142 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, the APM stated in their petition, designated CA/PEPC/04/2023, that Mr. Masari’s departure as the vice presidential candidate of the APC rendered Tinubu’s candidacy ineligible.

The party argued that there was a lag of roughly three weeks between the time Tinubu allegedly replaced Masari with Senator Kashim Shettima and the time Masari, who was listed as the petition’s fifth respondent, declared his intention to withdraw.

It further said that by the time Tinubu proposed Shettima as Masari’s substitute, his time for running had run out.

When Tinubu announced Shettima as his vice presidential candidate, the petitioner claims that “he was no longer in a position, constitutionally, to nominate a running mate since he had ceased to be a presidential candidate of the 2nd Respondent having regard to the provisions of section 142 of the 1999 Constitution since he had ceased to be a presidential candidate of the 2nd Respondent.”

The APM maintained that Masari’s initial nomination activated the joint ticket principle established by the Constitution and that his later withdrawal rendered the joint ticket ineffective.

LP disputes the verdict and considers what to do next.

The LP, meantime, has disagreed with the PEPC’s ruling affirming Tinubu’s announcement as the election’s victor on February 25, 2023.

Shortly after the court’s announcement of its ruling, the party’s national publicity secretary, Obiora Ifoh, explained the party’s position in Abuja.

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.

“Electoral robbery that occurred on February 25, 2023, was witnessed by Nigerians and denounced around the world, but the Tribunal, in its wisdom, refused to acknowledge the obvious.

Democracy is on the line, and we won’t give up until the people’s will wins.
We applaud the tenacity of our legal team for bravely disclosing the fury of our system.

“We can only cry for Nigeria’s democracy, but we won’t give up on that country.

“Following consultation with our attorneys and receipt of the Certified True Copy of the ruling, specifics of the party’s position will be disclosed.

“A new Nigeria is achievable, and we urge all supporters of democracy to be determined and upbeat about it.”

Tinubu praised the tribunal’s decision as a victory.

President Bola Tinubu hailed the decision as a positive development yesterday in response to the verdict.

Assuring Nigerians of his renewed and refocused commitment to realizing his goal of a united, peaceful, and prosperous country.

Mr. Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, stated in a statement that the verdict will motivate him to help Nigerians.

The following is from the statement: “President Tinubu greets the Tribal’s decision with a deep sense of solemn responsibility and readiness to serve all Nigerians, regardless of their varied political persuasions, religious beliefs, and tribal identities.

“The President acknowledges the five-member bench, presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, for their professionalism, thoroughness, and diligence in interpreting the law.

The President asserts that his dedication to the rule of law and the Tribunal’s unimpeded performance of its duties, as evidenced by the panel’s exclusive respect for the merits of the petitions submitted, further reflect the development of Nigeria’s legal system and the advancement of Africa’s largest democracy at a time when other parts of the continent are putting their democratic systems of government to the test.

“The President considers that Nigeria’s democratic credentials have been confirmed by the participation of Presidential Candidates and Political Parties in the 2023 general elections, as well as by the subsequent legal process.

The President calls on his brave rivals to instill in their supporters a sense of patriotism that will always rise above partisanship and manifest itself in support for our government’s efforts to raise the standard of living for all Nigerians.

“President Tinubu once again 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 established for that single purpose,” reads the statement from Tinubu’s office.

Democracy has won, Sanwo-Olu.

President Bola Tinubu received congratulations from Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu yesterday for his victory at the Presidential Election Petition Court, calling it “another well-deserved victory.”

Mr. Gboyega Akosile, his chief press secretary, claimed in a statement that the All Progressives Congress, or APC, put a lot of effort into achieving the success it did in the presidential election on February 25.

“The Presidential Election Petition Court’s ruling in the President’s favor 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.

“The beauty of democracy and the rule of law is what we are seeing today. Over eight million Nigerians participated in the election in February of this year, choosing Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to lead the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

It’s time to think clearly—ADEGBORUWA, SAN

Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN, an activist and attorney, also commented yesterday. He said: “Given the grave realities facing us as a nation and the status of the law, the Presidential Election Petition Court’s ruling was not wholly unexpected.

The presumption of election regularity and the requirement of considerable conformance make it very challenging to conduct elections successfully.

“In this specific case, the petitioners’ burden to overturn the election was nearly impossible to meet. To make matters worse, INEC fought the petitioners to a standstill in a manner that seemed it had a stake in the outcome of the case.

“I genuinely don’t think anyone, including the lawyers, anticipated a different judgement from what was announced in Abuja today. There was no need for the strain. This is why we continually stress that the electoral umpire should be the focus of anyone wishing to bring about a genuine shift in our election history.

“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 to think critically, notably the parties to the case, their attorneys, and all supporters of democracy. Within a few days of the election, the petitions could have been resolved solely on the basis of legal arguments.

“When it appears that the foundation of our democratic engagements has been hijacked and undermined, there can be no meaningful success in the court’s decision of the legal concerns. We should look back and analyze the electoral process and the litigation that followed it as part of the lesson we can learn from this process. Any credible election in Nigeria cannot be produced by INEC as it is currently set up.