PEPT justices endorsed INEC’s lapses – Adegboruwa, others
Legal practitioner, Mr Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa SAN has slammed the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) justices for exerting high burden of proof on the petitioners; Labour Party and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and their respective candidates in the February 25, 2023 election, Mr Peter Obi and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Reacting to the judgement delivered by the PEPT court, Wednesday, on the three petitions filed by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), the PDP and LP (as petitioners), Mr Adegboruwa berated the PEPT ruling which he noted focused ‘excessively on technicalities rather than substantive flaws and misconduct by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).’
It would be recalled that the PEPT, in its final judgement, Wednesday, after three months of court proceedings and another one month of waiting for the five-member panel to reach a verdict, had dismissed all prayers of the petitioners and affirmed President Bola Tinubu as duly elected on the February 25, 2023 elections as announced by INEC on March 1, 2023.
However, in a hail of reactions which have continued to trail the ruling, several legal practitioners have picked holes in the ruling, even as others have commended it.
Delivering his opinion on the judgement, Friday, legal luminary, Adegboruwa described Wednesday’s PEPT ruling as full of lapses and one which gives INEC a soft landing from all its many failings during the February 25 election.
According to Adegboruwa, the judgment may negatively affect future elections in the country, as according to him, the tribunal’s verdict ‘reversed all the gains from amended electoral laws expanding e-voting.’
Adegboruwa, however, agreed that the outcome aligned with precedents on issues like candidate nomination.
The lawyer though maintained that the PEPT justices should have chastised INEC for not electronically transmitting results despite its mandate, as, according to him, by seemingly endorsing INEC’s process lapses, ‘the tribunal judgment reversed all the gains from amended electoral laws expanding e-voting. He hopes the Supreme Court will correct this oversight he feels constitutes a disservice to Nigeria’s democracy.’
While admitting petitioners faced an extremely high burden of proof, the legal practitioner berated INEC’s lack of cooperation and withholding of evidence, which he insisted further undermined petitioners’ efforts at proving their case.
Adegboruwa, therefore, advocated that it has become imperative to shift the burden to INEC to demonstrate proper conduct instead rather than to the petitioners.
He further recommended urgent reforms to unbundle INEC and enhance its independence from political interference, just as he disclosed that the PEPT judgement in itself ‘focused excessively on technicalities rather than substantive flaws and misconduct by the electoral umpire.’
Adegboruwa’s position is also re-echoed by another legal practitioner, Mr. Eze Onyekpere who alleged that the recurring decimal in the PEPT court judgment on Wednesday was that the petitioner failed.
Onyekpere added that it sounded like a rebuke from the judges to the petitioners for bringing election matters to the court, as he stated further that the electoral commission which should have been blamed by the Judges was exempted after so many alleged irregularities in the 2023 Presidential election.
Speaking in an interview on Channels Television, Thursday, Onyekpere said INEC also failed to cooperate with the petitioners by refusing to provide them with the documents they needed to prove their cases.
”The petitioners went to court, and for the first two to three weeks, the Court gave an order to INEC to provide them and give them access to BVAS and materials. It took almost three weeks before they could have access and they didn’t have more than a couple of days before INEC came here with an application that they want to wipe off because they had to use the machine for an election.
“In so many states of the federation, the INEC puts obstacle on the way of the petitioners to access the materials and information they need. And you put the blame on them. Because hearing the judgment yesterday (Wednsday), the recurring decimal was that the petitioner failed, at some point it was sounding like a rebuke to the petitioner for coming to court in the first place.
“If you are presuming irregularities from the government agencies like INEC and it has been shown to you that there is nothing regular with what they have done. It’s up to the commission to show why it has to be believed,” Onyekpere said.
Also, reacting to the PEPT judgement, one of the counsels attached to the Labour Party and Peter Obi petition at the PEPT, Mr Kenneth Okonkwo, faulted the tribunal’s verdict for lacking in logic.
According to Mr Okonkwo, the tribunal relied on a letter of withdrawal written to APC by Kashim Shettima on the 6th of July 2023, to indicate an intention not to be doubly nominate for both the position of Borno Central Senatorial seat and the seat of the Vice President, and not the law which he had already fallen foul of.
“Just listened to the initial judgement of the PEPC and saw how the court relied on a purported letter of withdrawal written to APC by Shettima on the 6th of July, 2023 to indicate an intention not to be doubly nominated for both the position of Borno Central senatorial seat and that of the Vice-President.
“Maybe the court forgot that it was on the 10th of July 2023 at Daura that Tinubu said openly that he has chosen Shettima as Vice-Presidential candidate and that Shettima was not aware of it yet.
“How can someone withdraw his nomination from the Senate because of nomination for the Vice-Presidential seat at a time when he wasn’t aware that he was going to be nominated for the post of Vice-President?
“This is why a lot of people believe the letter that the Respondents realized that they were in trouble of offending the double provision.
“Evaluation of evidence must be logical. This is why judgement in election petitions must be concluded before candidates are sworn-in. In God we trust,” Okonkwo said.
Similarly, another legal practitioner, a constitutional rights lawyer, Mr Inibehe Effiong, in faulting the PEPT judges’ decision to provide a soft landing for INEC on the issue of electronic transmission of election results from the polling units, asked how then the Electoral Act will be seen to be implemented since it had specified the mode of transmission.
“If INEC is not bound to electronically transmit election results to the IREV, how then will results be transferred directly from the polling unit as mandated by the Electoral Act?
“Can results be transferred manually directly from polling unit?
“Note that delivery of physical copies of Form EC8A to the collation centre together with agents of political parties and security agencies is a separate requirement,” Mr Effiong said.
It would be recalled that Upholding the declaration of Tinubu as President, the five-member panel lead by Hon. Justice Haruna S. Tsammani in a unanimous decision, said the petitions by the petitioners lack merit.
The court thus affirmed Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the duly elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and parties are to bear their cost.
While the PDP in a statement, Wednesday, said it ‘unequivocally rejects the said judgement in its entirety,’ the Labour Party also in its own reaction to the ruling stated that it rejected the ruling ‘in its entirety because justice was not served and it did not reflect the law and the desire of the people.’
According to the PDP, the PEPT judgement of last Wednesday, ‘was against reason, against the facts and evidence presented in court; against the relevant Electoral Laws, Guidelines and Regulations as well as the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).’
On its part, the Labour Party said: “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.”
For most Nigerians reacting to the judgement, it was a case of the ruling amounted to an ‘insult’ to the country.
Meanwhile, member of the five-judge panel of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) court, Justice Mistura Bolaji-Yusuf, had set the tone for the hail of reactions when in a viral video released after the judgement, she berated supporters of the Labour Party and its candidate, Mr Peter Obi for believing ‘they won the election without any cogent and credible evidence.’
Justice Bolaji-Yusuf said: “It’s obvious that the petitioners were just fixated on the belief that they won the election without any cogent and credible evidence, and they did not even bother to place any such credible evidence before this court. Were they expecting the court to gather evidence from the streets or markets? Or were they hoping the court would be swayed or intimidated by threats on social media? That is not how the courts operate.”
Delivering judgement, Wednesday, the five-man panel of the PEPT led by Justice Haruna Tsammani had opened ruling with the dismissal of the petition filed by the APM which sought to the nullification of Tinubu’s election on the grounds of the double nomination of the Vice Presidential candidate of the APC, Sen. Kashim Shettima.
In the Judgment, Justice Haruna Tsamani dismissed the petition for lacking in merit due to the following reasons:
That the issue of a nomination or double nomination did not qualify as a ground for disqualification in respect of the presidential election as provided in the constitution.
That the issues raised by APM in the petition contained are pre-election matters that could only be treated at the Federal High Court.
That since the petition centred on the qualification or otherwise of President Tinubu to contest the presidential election that was held on February 25, the APM, ought to have gone to court within 14 days after Tinubu was nominated by the All Progressives Congress, APC.
That since the cause of action bordered on a pre-election matter, the APM, lacked the locus standi to challenge Tinubu’s nomination.
The court said, “The petition is without Merit, the contention of the Petitioner is discountenance.”
The tribunal held that the petitioner failed to prove that Tinubu breached Section 35 of the Electoral Act, 2022, when he nominated Shettima as his Deputy, adding that it was the president’s prerogative to choose his running mate.
In addition, the apex court held that the issue of alleged double nomination has been dealt with by the Supreme Court which is the final court in the land and as such no other court can adjudicate in it.
“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.
In the judgment, chairman of the Tribunal Justice Haruna Tsamani held that, Peter Obi’s allegations that votes credited to Tinubu were inflated were untenable because he never mentioned the number of the votes dashed to Tinubu.
On the Labour Party’s Petition as regards 25% in FCT, the Tribunal rules that the FCT does not enjoy special privileges ahead of other states and is hereby dismissed.
On the allegations of corrupt practices, the Appallet court stated that it is not every allegation of corruption that is regarded as corrupt practices adding that averments in a pleading must be specific and not general as done by Obi.
The Tribunal also held that Peter Obi did not prove the particular polling units where elections did not take place and that he also failed to specify particulars of polling units where the complainants of irregularities were alleged.
The court held that Petitioner who alleged blurred results in 1888 polling units could not provide evidence or state-specific polling units where such blurred results emanated.
The court held that there are no mandatory requirements for the transmission of results, citing a Federal High Court Judgement on the matter which had not been appealed.
On the issue of the alleged civil forfeiture of $460,000 to the US by Tinubu, the court held that the forfeiture was done on a civil matter of the United States as Tinubu has no criminal matter before the country.
The tribunal 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 judgment, there is nowhere in the Electoral Act, that says 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 accreditation of voters, Justice Tsammani emphasized that the ” IReV is not a collation system”.
Overall, the court held that “this petition is unmeritorious,“
While ruling on Atiku’s petition, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal struck out several paragraphs of his petition relied upon to push Tinubu out of office.
Also, several exhibits including witness statements he tendered to establish his allegations of irregularities, and malpractices against the February 25 presidential election were rejected and discountenanced by the Tribunal.
Delivering a ruling in some objections argued by Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN on behalf of Tinubu, Justice Moses Ugoh held that several parts of Atiku’s petition have no legs upon which they can stand and survive, hence, not competent.
The Tribunal said that the former Vice President made grievous allegations against Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello and Chairman of Olamaboro Local Government of Kogi, Friday Adejoh but neglected to join them as respondents in the petition.
Justice Ugoh 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 foul 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 and made him clever by half.
Among the offending new facts said to have been wrongfully introduced by Atiku were the allegations of a criminal conviction, certificate forgery, and dual citizenship of Guinea made against Tinubu 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 on the ground that 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.
The Tribunal held that the wrongful mode adopted by the PDP’s presidential candidate in the construction of the petition made several paragraphs of the petition table for striking out for want of merit.
In the final judgement, the chairman of the Tribunal Justice Haruna Tsamani dismissed all three petitions for lack of merit.
In a unanimous judgment, the court upheld the election of Tinubu and his Vice Kashim Shetima.
Justice Tsamani said, “This petition accordingly lacks merit. I affirm the return of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the duly elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
“The parties are to bear their cost,” the court held.
