The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, has dismissed virtually all grounds itemised by Abubakar Atiku, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to upturned the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the February 25, 2023, presidential election.
In its judgment, the tribunal dismissed allegations of non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022, filed by Atiku against the election of Tinubu.
One of the panelists, Justice Stephen Adah, who read the judgment stated that the petitioners failed to substantiate their claim that the election did not comply with the provisions of Sections 134 and 135 of the Electoral Act.
Adah said, “There has to be sufficient grounds before the petitioners can establish that there was no substantial compliance with the Electoral Act in the conduct of the election. The petitioners have in their petition listed some of the facts relating to their complaints of non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022. The key facts are in Paragraphs 18, 22, 23, 25, 28, 29, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40-44, 46, and 48 of the petition. The respondents have issues with the petitioners in respect of this issue and they all denied the facts pleaded by the petitioners. In paragraphs 17, 18, 19, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37, the first respondent, the Independent National Electoral Commission replied to the petition and denied all the allegations in the petition. The verdict of proof remains on the petitioners to establish their claim as required by the law. Apart from the first respondent who is the primary respondent because it is its acts that are challenged in this petition, the second (All Progressives Congress) and third (President Tinubu) respondents who are the beneficiaries of the declaration of the result, vary issues with the petitioners. The second respondent in his reply to the petition countered all the petitions pleaded in the case of the issue. The third respondent countered the petitioners’ allegations in paragraphs 36, 37, and 40 in his reply to the petition.”
The judge further stated, “Non-compliance means failure to or refusal to do something that you are officially or statutorily required to do. The Electoral Act 2022 in an explicit manner has laid clear ground on which election can be questioned in Section 134 thereof and Section 135 which looks like a proviso to Section 134. For proper appreciation of the intention of the law, Sections 134 and 135 of the Electoral Act must be considered together. Section 134 (1) says that an election may be questioned on any of the following grounds – A person whose election is questioned was, at the time of the election, not qualified to contest the election; the election was invalid because of corrupt practices or non-compliance with the provisions of this Act. And 135 (1) says ‘An election shall not be liable to be invalidated because of non-compliance with the provisions of this Act if it appears to the Election Tribunal or Court that the election was conducted substantially in accordance with the principles of this Act and that the non-compliance did not affect substantially the result of the election. “This ground of non-compliance with the electoral act has been in all our election laws even when we had a parliamentary system of government.”
Also, the court struck out several paragraphs of Atiku’s petitions Atiku Abubakar, to nullify Tinubu’s victory as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
It further rejected and discountenanced exhibits including witnesses’ statements tendered by Abubakar to substantiate his allegations of electoral irregularities and malpractices at the last presidential election.
Delivering judgment in some objections, Justice Moses Ugoh, held that several parts of Atiku’s petition could neither stand nor survive, hence, is incompetent.
In a similar judgment meted to presentations by Labour Party’s Peter Obi, the Court held that Abubakar failed to provide several facts fundamentally required to support his petition. Inter alia, the court said the PDP candidate failed to name the places where ballot boxes were snatched, the ways and manners the BVAS machines were manipulated, and specific polling units where the alleged malpractices happened.
Abubakar, who claimed to have polled the majority of lawful votes was said to have failed to state, in strong terms, the total lawful votes he claimed to have scored and the tribunal also held that although the former Vice President alleged that Tinubu did not score the majority of lawful votes, he failed to reveal the perceived lawful votes in his petition to the Tribunal.
Therefore, the Tribunal dismissed the allegations of over-voting nationwide by the petitioner saying such pleadings run foul of the law because he failed to mention the specific locations where the alleged over-voting took place.
Abubakar’s petition was also faulted for introducing 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.
Amongst the new facts he was said to have wrongfully introduced were the allegations of certificate forgery, criminal conviction, and dual citizenship of Guinea, made against Tinubu outside the mode of filing a petition.
Justice 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.
More so, the tribunal expunged several key witnesses of Abubakar from the tribunal record for having been made in manners not known to law.
It held that the wrongful mode adopted by the Adamawa-born presidential candidate in the construction of the petition made several paragraphs liable for expunging due to lack of merit.
Justice Adah equally rejected 15 out of the 27 witnesses presented by Atiku for failing to establish his case against the victory of Tinubu in the February 25 presidential election.
The Tribunal rejected the testimonies of the 15 witnesses because the petitioner failed to file their statements on oath along with the petition.
It further revealed that the petitioner could not file the statements on oath before the close of the 21-day window given from the date the election result was announced.
The Tribunal also struck out the portion that claimed that Tinubu was unqualified to contest the last presidential election, holding that while the petitioners claimed that Tinubu did not meet the constitutional threshold to enable him to contest the election, they failed to state what the required qualifications were.
The tribunal also expunged some paragraphs where the petitioners accused Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State and one Friday Adejo—described as a Local Government Chairman in Kogi State—but failed to join them as parties to the petition.
It also struck out other paragraphs where it found that the petitioners made vague allegations of irregularities and malpractices stating, “The witness statements being incompetent are, hereby, struck out.
“The further consequence of that decision is that given the provision of paragraph 41 sub three of the same first schedule to the electoral act 2022, stating that there shall be no oral examination of a witness during his evidence in chief except to lead the witness to adopt his written deposition and tender in evidence or disputed documents or other exhibits referred to in this deposition. It follows that all the evidence including evidence in cross-examination and all documents, reports…are incompetent, and are hereby expunged from the records of this court.”
