Palpable fear gripped the political class yesterday after the Supreme Court served notice of Judgment on parties of the two remaining appeals challenging the February 25 presidential election.
Those summoned for the judgement are Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, his sponsor the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi and the Labour Party(LP), the electoral body Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima and All Progressive Congress (APC)whose victory at the election is being challenged on appeal.
The two appeals arose from the judgement of the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) which on September 6, 2023, dismissed Atiku and Obi’s petitions for lacking in merit. PEPC on same day also dismissed the petition brought by Allied Peoples’ Movement (APM), the party whose appeal at the Supreme Court was dismissed on Monday for being ‘frivolous’.
A Seven-man panel of justices of the Supreme Court led by Justice Inyang Okoro on Monday during the hearing of the appeals questioned the admissibility of deposition Atiku attached in support of fresh evidence on Tinubu’s certificate from Chicago State University.
Besides the fresh evidence, the Supreme Court will today resolve one way or the other, a plethora of critical issues raised in the two separate appeals among them President Tinubu’s $460,000 forfeiture case in the United States on drug-related offences.
Atiku and Obi have prayed the apex court to set aside the decision of the Presidential Election Petitions Court and hold that the offence amounted to a criminal offence contemplated in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) for disqualification of the candidate.
While Tinubu in his processes before the PEPC and Supreme Court had not denied the forfeiture, he had asked the apex court to uphold the lower court decision that it was not a criminal trial contemplated by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).
Also to be resolved today is the issue of election results transmission from each polling Unit through Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines to collation centres.
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Atiku and Obi argued that the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transfer Presidential polling Unit results through BVAS amounted to a major breach of the Electoral Act 2022 and added that it was a mischief on the part of the electoral body successfully transmitted the National Assembly election results held concurrently same day and time.
But the respondents including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) whose conduct is being questioned told the Supreme Court that the Independent Result Viewing Centre (IRev) is not a collation centre and it doesn’t matter as it (INEC) is at liberty to adopt any method it thinks fit.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his party filed 35 grounds of appeal seeking nullification of the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
The appellants said that the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) erred in law by not taking into cognisance the Doctrine of Legitimate Expectation when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) failed to conduct the election in accordance with its own guidelines and the Electoral Act 2022.