Court reserves judgment on Atiku, Obi’s petitions against Tinubu, INEC

The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja, yesterday reserved its judgment on the petition that a former Vice-President and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party (LP), counterpart, Peter Obi, filed to nullify President Bola Tinubu’s election.

The Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel okayed the matter for judgment in the Atiku matter, after all the parties adopted their final briefs of argument.

While adopting their final written address, Atiku and the PDP, through their team of lawyers led by Chief Chris Uche, SAN, urged the court to declare that President Tinubu was not qualified to contest the presidential poll that was held on February 25.

Alternatively, the petitioners urged the court to nullify the entire outcome of the presidential election and order a re-run or fresh contest.

Atiku and his party alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), despite receiving over N355 billion for the conduct of the election, “deliberately bypassed all the technological innovations it introduced for the purpose of the 2023 general elections”.

They contended that INEC acted in breach of the amended Electoral Act, when it refused to electronically transmit the results of the presidential election.

“On the issue of transmission of election results based on new provisions in the Electoral Act, we are all in agreement, including the INEC, that there is a new regime in election management.

“The essence of the innovation was to enhance transparency in the collation of results, which was an area where we usually had problems and not the actual election, and secondly, to enhance the integrity of results declared.

“We agree that INEC had an option and we brought video evidence by INEC Chairman showing that the electoral body indeed chose an option.

“It is our contention and it is here in evidence that witnesses admitted that results from the National Assembly election were transmitted but that of the presidential election was not.

“A whopping N355bn was deployed for the election, therefore, INEC owes this court and the nation an explanation.”

The petitioners added, “It is our submission that there was no technical glitch on the election day, rather, there was a deliberate bypass of the technology in order to create room for the manipulation that eventually took place.

“Until the court makes a judicial pronouncement, there may not be compliance to express provisions of the new regime of the Electoral Act.

“My lords, in a situation like this, the burden shifts on INEC to explain. It is not on the Petitioner to explain why there was such a technical glitch.

“We urge this court to hold that there was deliberate non-compliance. The substantiality of the non-compliance lies in the national spread of the non-transmission of results. It was national and not limited to certain polling units,” Uche, SAN, added.

However, all the respondents- INEC, President Tinubu, and the All Progressives Congress, APC- through their respective lawyers, prayed the court to dismiss the petition as grossly lacking in merit.

INEC, through its legal team led by Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, maintained that the presidential election was not only validly conducted but done in substantial compliance with all the relevant laws.

Likewise, President Tinubu’s team, led by Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, argued that the petitioners failed to establish why the presidential election should be nullified.

Insisting that he was duly elected with a majority of valid votes that were cast during the election, President Tinubu, urged the court to dismiss Atiku’s petition.

On its part, the APC, represented by Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, equally prayed the court to dismiss the petition for want of merit.

After it had listened to all the parties, the Justice Tsammani-led panel adjourned the matter for judgment.

The court said it would communicate the judgment date to all the parties.

Also yesterday, the tribunal adopted Obi’s final written address through his counsel, Livy Uzoukwu, who argued that the results uploaded on the IReV by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were blurry and unacceptable.

He said, “18,088 blurred results were uploaded to the IREV,  this shows that it is a very flawed result. It is my submission that a Certified True copy must be an exact replica of the polling unit form”.

He held that out of the certified polling unit results INEC issued to the petitioners, out of 8,123 were blurred.

Obi also alleged that INEC’s failure to upload results to the IREV portal in real-time negatively impacted the polls.

He challenged the stand of APC/Tinubu who had earlier argued that if the court should decide a re-run is the way to go, Obi must be exempted as stated in the constitution where the 3rd position is ruled out if contesting in a re-run as the race is only between the 1st and 2nd position from the election result.

Uzoukwu held that if the court decides to cancel the February 25 election and order a re-run, Tinubu should be exempted as he was not qualified to run in the first place.

On FCT, Uzoukwu said it would be an absurdity to say that 25 percent votes from the country’s capital were not mandatory for anyone vying to be Nigeria’s president.

All the Respondents in the suit, APC, INEC and Tinubu prayed to the court to dismiss Obi and LP’s petition, calling them meddlesome interlopers.

They added that their petition lacked merit.