Olusegun Olanrewaju and Deborah Onyofufeke
President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, yesterday told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to dismiss the case brought by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, describing the former as a serial loser with no capacity to win a national election.

Tinubu, who is the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate in the disputed poll, made this call in his preliminary objection filed against Atiku’s petition through his team of lawyers led by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Wole Olanipekun, even as he insisted that he won the February 25 election.

Former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, is contesting the outcome of the presidential election which returned Tinubu as the winner at the PEPC.

But in his response to Atiku’s petition, Tinubu said his co-contestant couldn’t have won the poll because he was a serial election loser.

He said, “The 1st petitioner (Abubakar) has been consistently contesting and losing successive presidential elections in Nigeria since 1993, whether at the party primary election level or the general election.”

In a preliminary objection marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023, the APC presidential candidate in the presidential poll prayed to the court to dismiss the entire petition.

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The president-elect recalled that Atiku, in 1993, lost the Social Democratic Party (SDP) primary election to the late Chief M.K.O Abiola.

He said, “In 2007, he lost the presidential election to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.”

Other elections, according to Tinubu, which his rival, Atiku, lost over the years include the PDP presidential primary election (to President Goodluck Jonathan, in 2011) and the APC primary election (2015), to President Muhammadu Buhari.

Tinubu also said in 2019, Atiku lost the presidential election to Buhari; and now in 2023, Wazirin Adamawa again, lost the presidential election to him.

According to the president-elect, it was not a surprise or not by accident that the electorate rejected the 1st petitioner at the polls of the presidential election held on February 25.

He said he was ready to provide evidence to prove to the court that a host of states controlled by PDP and their governors protested against Atiku’s emergence as the party’s candidate, and vowed never to support his candidature.

The president-elect held that he has always been a consistent politician, who has not shifted political tendency and alignment which cannot be said of the 1st petitioner (Atiku) who he claimed has consistently crisscrossed different political parties of Nigeria.

Tinubu claimed that while he had always carried his supporters along and increased his political followership, Atiku had lost most of his followers in the process of moving from one political party to the other.

The President-elect alleged that the emergence of Atiku as the presidential candidate of the 2nd petitioner (PDP) in the 2023 poll, led to irreconcilable hostilities within the ranks of the party, causing the formation of a group of governors known all over the country as the G-5 Governors- Rivers, Oyo, Enugu, Abia and Benue, who opposed the 1st petitioner and vowed to mobilise their people against him.

He said he would “lead evidence to show that the 1st petitioner could not even campaign or canvass for votes in some of the states controlled by the 2nd petitioner, including Rivers and Oyo States where the 2nd respondent (Tinubu) defeated the 1st petitioner (Abubakar) by a wide margin.

Tinubu, who said the former vice president, having lost at the election, had no right to be declared as a winner under the Nigerian laws, prayed the court to dismiss the petition for lacking in merit, substance, and sincerity.

He described it as being “frivolous, vexatious, highly misconceived and disclosing no reasonable cause of action.”

*INEC: APC candidate didn’t need 25 per cent of votes in FCT

Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Tuesday, had told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that Tinubu did not need to win 25 per cent of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to be declared the winner of the election.

The INEC stated this in its reply by its lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, to the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, before the tribunal.

The Commission said the APC candidate met all the legal requirements to be so announced as the winner of the election.

It argued that a candidate need not secure 25 per cent votes in the FCT to be declared winner, “Because the FCT was not accorded any special status in the constitution as being erroneously portrayed by some political parties and candidates who lost the election.”

On why it returned Tinubu as the winner, the INEC said the APC candidate scored 25 per cent of the valid votes cast in 29 states of the federation.

He said, “Having scored at least one-quarter of the valid votes cast in 29 states, which is over and above the 2/3 states threshold required by the constitution, in addition to scoring the majority of the lawful votes cast at the election, the 2nd respondent was properly declared the winner and returned as the president-elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Mahmood added, “The 2nd respondent, having scored 25 per cent of the valid votes cast in the 29 states, has satisfied the requirement of the constitution to be declared winner of the presidential election, thus rendering the requirement of having 25 per cent of the valid votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory unnecessary.

“The 1st respondent denies that scoring 25 per cent of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory is a condition precedent to the declaration and return of a candidate in the presidential election,” it said.

INEC added that by the margin of lead, it did not act hastily, as claimed by Atiku and the PDP, in declaring Tinubu the winner of the election.

It stressed that Tinubu scored “25 per cent of the valid votes cast in 29 states of the Federation to wit: Ekiti, Kwara, Osun. Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Yobe, Lagos, Gombe, Adamawa, Katsina, Jigawa, Nasarawa, Niger, Benue, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Kogi, Bauchi, Plateau, Bayelsa, Kaduna, Kebbi, Kano, Zamfara, Sokoto, Taraba, Borno and Rivers.”

While faulting the petitioners’ claim on the status of the FCT, INEC argued that “the provisions of the constitution apply to the FCT as if it were one of the states of the Federation.

The commission also argued that the use of the word ‘and’ in Section 134 (2) of the Constitution indicates nothing more than that in construing two-thirds of the states of the federation in which a candidate is required to score one-quarter of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory.”

It argued that by the provision of the constitution, the FCT “has the status of a state and ought to be recognised as if it was a state of the federation.”

It added that the FCT, beyond being the country’s capital, “has no special constitutional status over and above the other 36 states of the Federation to require a candidate in the presidential election to obtain at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in the FCT before being declared winner of the presidential election.

“The Federal Capital Territory is regarded as the 37th state of the federation, and as such, a candidate needs to score 25 per cent of the valid votes cast in at least two-thirds of 37 states (to be declared as winner in the presidential election).”

Abubakar, 1st petitioner, and PDP, 2nd petitioner, in the petition, marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023, had listed INEC, Tinubu, and APC as 1st to 3rd respondents respectively.

The petitioners are seeking the nullification of the election victory of Tinubu in the Feb 25 presidential poll.

*Tinubu questions the competence of Obi’s petition

Tinubu is also challenging the right of the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Peter Obi, to fault his victory at the February 25 presidential election.

In his response to the petition by Obi and the LP, he argued that the former Anambra State government was not a lawful member of the LP as of the time he contested on the party’s platform, and lacks the locus standi to challenge the outcome of the exercise.

He queried the competence of Obi’s petition and prayed the court dismiss it.

His team of lawyers led by Wole Olanipekun added that as of 24th May 2022, six days before the primary election, the LP purportedly held to produce/elect Obi as the presidential candidate of the party for the presidential election held on 25th February 2023, Obi was still a card-carrying member of the PDP, and he did not resign his membership of the said party until 24th May 2022.

They added that as of 30 days before LP’s presidential primary, Obi was still a presidential aspirant in the PDP.

They also argued that the grounds on which the petition is predicated are incompetent, thereby denying the court the needed jurisdiction.