True to his claim- (Emi lokan) President Bola Tinubu on Thursday floored the Presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) as the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed his February 25, 2023 election victory.
Seven man panel of justices of the apex court headed by Justice Inyang Okoro said in a judgement held that President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), actually won the election as declared by both the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC and Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC).
The Independent National Electoral Commission had precisely on March 1, 2023 declared Tinubu the winner of the hotly contested poll with 8,794,726 votes to defeat his two major rivals, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who came second with a total of 6,984,520 votes, and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.
Disatisfied with the announcement Atiku and Obi had approached the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) with petitions praying the court to nullify Tinubu’s result and declare them as winner or nullify the entire election.
Unfortunately Atiku and Obi , PEPC dismissed their petitions after it found that they lacked merit. Further disatisfied with the decision both Atiku and Obi with their parties lodged the current appeals at the Supreme Court.
Delivering the lead judgement, Justice Inyang Okoro held that there was no merit in both petitions filed by Atiku and Obi that seek to nullify the outcome of the election.
He held that Atiku did not prove that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, did not substantially comply with provisions of the Electoral Act, in the conduct of the election.
According to the apex court stipulated that section 185(1) of the Evidence Act provided that an election should not be liable to be invalidated, when alleged non compliance did not substantially affect the outcome of an election.
The Supreme Court said that evidence contained in the record of the appeal showed that the Appellants abandoned the duty imposed on them by the law to not only prove the alleged non compliance, but to establish that failure of INEC to transmit results of the election through its IReV portal, influenced the outcome of the presidential poll.
The Supreme Court added that it had in the past judgements, made it clear that there was a difference between election result collation system and the IReV portal.
“Where the IReV portal fails, it does not stop the collation which up till the last election was manually done,” Justice Okoro held.
However, the court point out that INEC’s failure to electronically transmit results of the election, denied the electorates the opportunity to follow and cross-check results that were eventually uploaded.
“Truth must be told, the non transmission of results to the IReV portal may also reduce the confidence of the voting population in the electoral process,” the Supreme Court noted.
The Supreme Court further held that inability of the electoral body to transmit election results to INEC’s IReV portal “for whatever reason, could not be the reason for an election to be nullified.
The apex court held that Atiku and PDP did not prove that they suffered any miscarriage of justice as a result of the dismissal of their petition by the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC.
Justice Okoro said that Atiku and Obi’s contention that Tinubu ought not have been declared winner of the presidential election, having failed to secure 25% votes in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja was misconceived and misplaced because FCT has no special status above 36 States of the federation.
The apex court upheld the lower court decision striking out the evidence of some of the witnesses that testified for Atiku at the PEPC hearing, as “inadmissible hearsay” evidences.
“The Appellants did not present any evidence to warrant the interference of the findings of the lower court,” Justice Okoro, added.
On the issue that President Tinubu was involved in a drug related case in the USA that led to the forfeiture of $460, 000, the Supreme Court held that Atiku raised the issue when the Respondents had already filed their process.
That process denied the Respondents the right to fair hearing.
“The ruling of the lower court is unassailable and this court will not interfere,” he held.
The Supreme court held that whereas Atiku alleged that the result that was declared by INEC was not accurate, he left the court without an alternative result as he failed to provide his perceived rightful result.
It held that the result announced by INEC was presumed as correct in the absence of “any rival or alternative result.”
“The figure before us shows that the 2nd Respondent won the highest number of votes and was duly declared winner.”
Therefore, the court, resolved all the seven issues raised in the appeal against Atiku
“On the whole, having resolved all the issues against the Appellants, it is my view that there is no merit in this appeal and it is hereby dismissed.”
Other members of the panel: Justices Uwani Abaji, Lawal Garba, Ibrahim Saulawa, Adamu Jauro, Tijani Abubakar, and Justice Emma Agim agreed with the lead judgement.