The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) delivered judgement on Wednesday 6th September 2023, that Nigeria’s main opposition parties failed to prove claims of electoral malpractice against the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) in February’s disputed elections.
Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) challenged President Bola Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of the 2023 presidential election.
At the court, Justice Abba Mohammed, a member of the panel of justices, read the ruling on the preliminary objections filed by the respondents against Peter Obi’s petition
“LP alleged that INEC reduced their scores and added it to APC votes but failed to supply particulars of what they actually scored before the said reductions, neither did they supply the polling units where it happened….”
“It was only in one instance that figures were given of alleged suppressed votes and we all know that elections are about figures,” he said.
The court said the petitioners did not prove the particular polling unit where the election did not take place nor did they specify particulars of polling units where there are alleged complainants of irregularities.
“The law is clear that where someone alleges irregularities in a particular polling unit, such person must prove the particular irregularities in that polling unit before that petition can succeed”, the Tribunal added.
“Pleading must set out material facts and particulars. In the instant petition, there was no effort to prove specific allegations, particulars of complaints,” said the Tribunal.
According to him, the petitioners only made generic allegations. He stated that in a presidential election held in 176,866 polling units in 774 Local Government Areas, it would be improper not to specify where there were irregularities.
While highlighting a claim by the respondents that Obi’s petition only alleged that there were widespread irregularities without giving the particulars and the polling units.
The Tribunal also touched on the issue of non-joinder of Atiku Abubakar who came second and wondered how Obi & LP’s petition could be effectively determined without joining the candidate who placed second in the polls
Tribunal Declares APC’s Petition on Obi’s Membership Incompetent, the Court also declared APC’s petition challenging Obi’s membership of the LP as incompetent. Justice Abba says membership in a political party is an internal affair.
This is as it rejected the European Union report on the polls, arguing that it was not tendered by an official of the body.
The court has rejected the reports of forensic analyses tendered by LP’s three witnesses. According to the court, they are either made during the pendency of the case or by an interested party.
According to the court, FCT residents have no special privileges as the petitioners claimed. Tribunal dismisses LP/Obi’s Petition on 25 per cent needed to win the presidential election.
The five-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani ruled that no record of criminal arrest or conviction was established against Tinubu by the petitioners.
“Obi, LP Failed To Prove Tinubu Was Convicted In US, Tribunal Rules. The Presidential Election Petitions Court on Wednesday ruled that the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, failed to prove that President Bola Tinubu of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) was convicted for money laundering in the United States.
On the issue of substantial non-compliance with the provisions of the law, especially with regard to non-transmission of result sheets to INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), the court held that there is no law that says INEC must transfer or transmit the results of the election from the polling units electronically.
The law simply empowers INEC to decide the means of collation of results of elections, the court argued.
Tribunal Strikes Out LP’s Petition Against Tinubu’s Win. The Tribunal struck out the Labour Party’s petitions against Tinubu’s win in the presidential election for lack of merit. The petitioners have failed to establish their allegations of overvoting and voter suppression, the court ruled.
The court is highlighting issues of corruption which Obi claimed were recorded in the elections. They include vote suppression, inflation of results, and over-voting. But Justice Tsammani said some paragraphs relating to these claims had been struck out earlier due to their vague and generic nature.
The PEPT ruled that Obi failed to establish that INEC intentionally refused to quickly upload polling unit results to IReV so as to alter the results in Tinubu’s favour.
“The petitioner made the allegation of non-compliance a substantial part of their case. By the provisions of Section 135(2) of the Electoral Act, they must show how such noncompliance substantially affected them. If they fail to show the same, the petition fails,” the court ruled.
According to the PEPT, INEC regulations and the Electoral Act give room for manual collation of results. It said electronic transmission is optional at best.
The court added that the only device that must be used by INEC for elections is the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS.
It noted that no regulation shows BVAS must be used to electronically transmit results from polling units.
According to him, the petition did not list polling units where election malpractices happened.
On Atiku’s petition judgement, One of the five-man panel Justice Moses Ugo read the judgement in Atiku’s case against President Bola Tinubu.
Justice Ugo highlighted faults in Atiku’s petition, saying it is filed with generic allegations.
Justice Adah rejected Atiku’s 15 witnesses, saying their statements on oath were not filed along with the petition. He also rejected 37 exhibits they tendered.
The witnesses were emphatic that voting went well, party agents signed the results but the only difficulty was in uploading the results electronically.
All 10 of the witnesses testified that the voting went well and was peaceful in their different polling units but they all said they could not upload results electronically to the INEC IREV, so they entered the results manually and took the same to the ward & or state collation centre.
After this, Justice Adah hands over to Justice Tsammani who then proceeds to deal with the main petition. The court spells out four grounds for determination.
On the inability of the election officers to transmit, of the 27 witnesses called by the petitioner, 10 were polling unit agents who testified as to how the elections were conducted in their different polling units.
Court Strikes Out Atiku’s Dual Citizen Petition Against Tinubu”. On the issue of dumping of documents on the court, he held that this would only go to the weight to be attached to such evidence.
On the issue of Tinubu’s conviction and the issue of his dual citizenship, the Tribunal again held like it earlier did that these issues were incompetent and liable to be struck out and same were indeed struck out.
The tribunal held that the petitioner has not successfully proved the allegations on this and all the grounds in their petition.
Issue four is on whether INEC was right to return the second respondent, Tinubu as duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast.
The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal Affirms Tinubu’s Win.
Justice Tsammani said, “This petition accordingly lacks merit. I affirm the return of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the duly elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The parties are to bear their cost”.
