Judgement Day Update: Tribunal strikes out LPs petition against Tinubu
Comment
Obi’s petition was “unmeritorious” and had “not led any credible evidence sufficient enough” to back his claims of irregularities, Justice Tsammani said, Wednesday while reading out a lengthy ruling on behalf of the tribunal’s panel of five justices.
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This was as the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, PEPT, ruled out the petitions of the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi.
The LP and it’s candidate had claimed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was not duly elected during the February 25, 2023 poll and therefore, prayed the court to invalidate the election while alleging other irregularities.
Media reports have it that even European observers had in June, 2023 said that the elections were marred by problems including operational failures and a lack of transparency that reduced public trust in the process.
Meanwhile, amongst others, one of the issue that was raised by the LP was that Tinubu ought not to be declared winner of the election because he scored less than 25 per cent votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and was not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast.
The Tribunal however held that the argument is “ridiculous” citing Section 134 (2a) of the constitution, that without any form of equivocation, “scoring 25 percent in the FCT in a presidential election is not mandatory and this issue was also resolved against the petitioner and in favour of the respondent”.
The five-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani while delivering judgement noted that the tribunal considered the directive of state policy and the preamble of the constitution that provides for the equality of citizens while arriving at its decision.
By this, both Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of Labour Party can hence, only appeal to the country’s Supreme Court to overturn the tribunal’s ruling. Such appeals must be concluded within 60 days of the date of the tribunal judgment.
Earlier, the tribunal had struck out some paragraphs containing allegations of irregularities and corrupt practices by Mr Peter Obi in his petition challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu as winner of the 2023 presidential election.
The tribunal struck out the affected paragraphs on the grounds that they were “vague, imprecise, nebulous and failed to meet the requirements of pleadings”.
Justice Abba Mohammed, who read the ruling held that “averments” must not leave room for confusion or ambiguity, adding that the aim of pleadings is to avail respondents of the facts of the case so as to prepare adequately.
The LP had alleged electoral malpractice in over 500 polling units across the country but the jury held that it was inappropriate for the petitioners to say some polling units or collation centers without being specific.
“Averments must not be general but specific”, Mohammed ruled, adding that, “petitioners failed to specify polling units where anomalies occurred or where agents complained of alleged malpractice and irregularities.
The five-man panel further pointed that amongst the total of over 18, 000 polling units where the petitioners alleged that INEC uploaded “blurred results ” unto the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) Portals, not one polling units was cited.
“They did not specify polling units where election results were not uploaded” or where scores attributed to them was reduced or added to Tinubu”.
“They did not show the majority of votes they claimed they had scored “, the tribunal held, adding that petitioners only make generic allegations of irregularities and malpractice.
The jury also faulted the petitioners for relying on a spreadsheet analysis, inspection results and experts reports adding that, such documents ought to be served on the respondents to enable them do their own analysis and respond accordingly.
“The spreadsheet report, inspection results and experts reports were not served but only listed as documents to be relied on in adjudicating the petition.”
Val9ja News recalls that since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, no legal challenge to the outcome of a presidential election has succeeded despite its history of electoral fraud.
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