By Deborah Onyofufeke, Abuja

The Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja yesterday dismissed the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi, who challenged the election outcome of the February 25 general election that produced Bola Tinubu as the winner.

The tribunal also dismissed the petition filed by the Allied People’s Movement (APM) against the election of President Tinubu.

Justice Haruna Tsammani, who led the five-member panel, dismissed the petition for lacking in merit.

Tsammani held that the petitioners failed to prove the allegations that Tinubu was not qualified to contest the February 25 presidential election.

The tribunal held that Obi’s claims of his votes being suppressed in favour of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, was not justified.

Justice Abba Mohammed, while ruling on Obi’s petition, held that the LP presidential candidate in the election raised several allegations of malpractices, irregularities, and corruption in the February 25 polls without being specific as required by law.

The tribunal also held that Obi’s petition was vague, incoherent, nebulous, self-contradictory, and incompetent as it failed to state or specify the number of lawful votes he claimed to have won or the number of votes he alleged was dashed to Tinubu to inflate his score to back up the claims of him (Obi) scoring the highest number of lawful votes in the election.

On this ground, the tribunal in a ruling on several objections against the petition struck out several paragraphs of the petition for being vague.

The tribunal stated that Obi had pleaded report of forensic experts but failed to file the report along with the petition or serve the same on the respondents in the petition.

The tribunal struck off the forensic report or evidence provided by the mathematics professor who carried out the analysis because his evidence should have been provided at the point of filing the election petition to allow the opposition to read them ahead of time.

The tribunal held that 10 out of the 13 witnesses subpoenaed by Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP) in support of their petition against the election of President Bola Tinubu had their written statements, which contained their evidence.

The tribunal held that they were not filed along or frontloaded with the petition within the 21 days allowed by the Electoral Act 2022.

The court rejected the documents, including the report of analysis, tendered by the petitioners through the affected 10 witnesses.

The court also held that some of the witnesses are not only persons with interest in the outcome of the case, the reports they tendered were made during the pendency of the case.

The tribunal also ruled that Obi’s request for an extension of time to subpoena (call) 10 additional witnesses, was not originally part of the Petition, and was a “surreptitious” attempt to amend the Petition beyond the legally allowed 21-day time frame.

The court found that this amendment was impermissible and consequently dismissed the application. All testimonies from these witnesses and documents tendered by them have been struck out or excluded. Obi and the LP now have only three witnesses remaining in court.

The tribunal also expunged more than 10 documents submitted by Obi, deeming them impermissible because they were made in anticipation of or during the pendency lawsuit.

The tribunal held that this decision is by the legal provision outlined in Section 83(3) of the Evidence Act 2011.

Also, one document was expunged because it did not meet the proper certification requirements as stipulated under Section 104 of the Evidence Act 2011.

*$460,000: Fraud, drug allegations

On the drug allegations fine of $460,000, the petitioners filed against Tinubu, the tribunal stated that Obi and LP failed to prove that Tinubu was found guilty of any offence involving any act of dishonesty, adding that evidence before the court showed that the forfeiture order against Tinubu was in a civil and not criminal matter.

The tribunal held that the Petitioners failed to substantiate allegations of fraud and drug allegations against the president and that he was qualified to contest the election.

The tribunal stated that Tinubu was neither arraigned nor convicted in the US over any alleged crime to warrant his disqualification, further pointing out that the documents tendered by the respondents confirmed that Tinubu was given a clean bill of health upon an inquiry from Nigeria.

The tribunal held that Section 269(1&2), provides that such documents must be given under the hand Police official and must be accompanied by a certificate showing that the police officer has powers to sign such documents.

Also, the tribunal pointed out that even if Tinubu were convicted for the alleged offence, for him to be disqualified from the 2023 election, the purported conviction must take place within 10 years of the election.

Recall that the forfeiture order was made nearly three decades ago.

The petitioners had during the hearing claimed Tinubu was made to forfeit the sum of $460,000 to the US over alleged complicity in drug-related offences in the early 90s.

This is amongst grounds upon which Obi and LP are seeking the nullification of Tinubu’s emergence as president is that by a forfeiture order against Tinubu by a United States District Court, Tinubu ought not to be on the ballot.

Meanwhile, the tribunal has also dismissed a claim by Obi and LP that the election that produced Tinubu did not comply with the Electoral Act, 2022 because the results of the election were not transmitted in real-time to the INEC’s Results Viewing (IReV) portals.

According to the judgement, there was nowhere in the Electoral Act that said the election must be electronically transmitted for collation.

While pointing out that Section 14&18 of the Electoral Act provides for the use of the Bi-modal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) for the accreditation of voters, Justice Tsammani emphasised that the “IReV is not a collation system.”

PEPC affirms President Bola Tinubu ‘s election

*Atiku’s case

Just as in the case of Obi, the PEPC in its judgement, dismissed the petition of PDP’s Atiku.

The court said several facts fundamentally required to support the petition were not provided by Atiku.

Delivering the ruling in the petition, Justice Moses Ugoh held that several parts of the petition have no legs upon which they could stand and survive and, hence, are not competent.

The tribunal that the wrongful mode adopted by the PDP’s presidential candidate in the construction of the petition made several paragraphs of the petition liable for striking out for want of merit.

The tribunal rejected and discountenanced several exhibits the former Vice President tendered before the tribunal to argue his case of election fraud, irregularities in the score announced, and malpractices in the election process.

Among others, the tribunal held that Atiku failed and neglected to name places where ballot boxes were snatched, the ways and manners in which the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine was manipulated, and names of polling booths where the alleged malpractices took place.

The tribunal held that Atiku, who claimed to have scored the higher number of lawful votes against his major competitors, Tinubu and Obi, failed to state in clear terms, the total lawful votes he claimed to have scored.

The court held that Atiku made horrendous allegations against Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, and Chairman of Olamaboro Local Government Area of the state, Friday Adejoh, but did not join them as respondents in the petition.

The tribunal held that failure to join the governor, who was accused of electoral fraud, was fatal to the petition because the governor was denied the opportunity to defend himself as required by law.

The tribunal dismissed the allegations of overvoting all over Nigeria by the petitioner, adding that such pleadings run afoul of the law because the specific places where the alleged overvoting took place were not mentioned.

Atiku’s petition was also faulted on the ground that it introduced several facts and allegations in unlawful ways that caught the respondents unaware, adding that the tactic employed was unfair and made him clever by half.

The tribunal amongst others listed offending new facts said to have been wrongfully introduced by Atiku where the allegations of a criminal conviction, certificate forgery, and dual citizenship of Guinea he made against Tinubu were said to be outside the mode of filing a petition.

Justice Stephen Jonah Adah, who read another ruling on objections against the petition expunged several documents tendered by Atiku because the exhibits were made during the pendency of the petition.

Also, the evidence of several key witnesses of Atiku were expunged from the Court record having been made in manners not known to law.

*Tribunal strikes out APM’s petition against Tinubu

Earlier, the PEPT dismissed the petition filed by the Allied People’s Movement (APM) against the election of President Tinubu.

The petition was struck out in a preliminary objection ruling filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the All Progressives Congress (APC), Tinubu, Shettima, and Kabiru Masari, who were 1st to 5th respondents respectively.

The five-member panel agreed with the respondents that the petition was incompetent, lacking in merit, and an abuse of court processes because the case was a pre-election matter.

“The petitioner failed to prove that Tinubu was not qualified to contest the February 25 presidential election on the grounds of double nomination,” the court held.

The tribunal stated that the case of the petitioner having been a pre-election matter ought to be filed at the Federal High Court, not before the tribunal.

It added that even if the tribunal had powers to hear the case, it has already become statute-barred, having not been filed within 14 days as prescribed by law.

According to the tribunal, its findings showed that the case of the APM was premised on the alleged unlawful nomination and sponsorship of the vice president, Kashim Shettima, which ought to be a pre-election matter.

Justice Haruna Tsammani, who read the ruling observed that the issue of qualification and disqualification of a candidate is a constitutional matter, adding that the issue of nomination does not flow from the grounds of disqualification as provided in the Constitution.

In further holding that the suit was incompetent, the tribunal agreed with the respondents that the petitioner lacked the necessary locus standi to file the case in the first place since it did not participate in the primary election of the APC.

Meanwhile, delivering judgment in the main petition, the panel held that the petitioner failed to prove that Tinubu breached Section 35 of the Electoral Act, 2022, when he nominated Shettima as his Vice, adding that it was the president’s prerogative to choose his running mate.

Besides, the tribunal while pointing out that Shettima did not knowingly present himself for double nomination, stated that the case of the petitioner was faulty because Shettima never obtained any nomination form for the position of Vice President not contested any primary election for the position.

The tribunal stated that the Supreme Court already adjudicated on the matter clarifying that the issue of alleged double nomination has been answered by the apex Court which is the final court in the land and as such no other court can adjudicate in it.

*LP rejects judgement

Meanwhile, the LP has rejected the presidential election petition court judgement which dismissed the party and its presidential candidate, Obi, petition against the February 25 election.

Obi had told the tribunal that he won about 59 per cent of the votes cast, which neither President Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) nor Atiku scored.

The National Publicity Secretary of the LP, Obiora Ifoh, stated the party’s position in a press release.

The statement read, “The Labour Party watched with dismay and trepidation the dismissal of petitions by the five-man panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court.

“Led by Justice Haruna Tsammani today and we reject the outcome of the judgment in its entirety because justice was not served and it did not reflect the law and the desire of the people.

“Nigerians were witnesses to the electoral robbery that took place on February 25, 2023, which was globally condemned but the Tribunal in its wisdom refused to accept the obvious. What is at stake is democracy and we will not relent until the people will prevail.

“We salute the doggedness of our team of lawyers who fearlessly exposed the wrath in our system. We can only weep for democracy in Nigeria but we refuse to give up on Nigeria.

“Details of the party’s position will be presented after consultation with our lawyers after the Certified True Copy of the judgement is made available to us.

“We urge all lovers of democracy to remain focused and hopeful because a new Nigeria is possible,” the statement read.