Presidential election: Atiku, Obi head for Supreme Court

THE presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), AlhajiAbubakarAtiku, and his party have approached the Supreme Court to seek nullification of the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) which sat at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.

Justice HarunaTsammani-led panel had on September 6, 2023 dismissed the joint petition filed by Atiku and the PDP and upheld the declaration of Bola Tinubu as winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential election.

Atiku and his party, in a Notice of Appeal hinged on 35 grounds, insisted that the lower court, in its judgment delivered by Justice Tsammani, committed grave error and miscarriage of justice in its findings and conclusion in their petition challenging the declaration of Tinubu as president by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The Notice of Appeal just filed by the lead counsel to the appellants, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), is praying the Supreme Court to set aside the whole findings and conclusions of the PEPC on the grounds that they did not represent the true picture of the grounds of his petition.

Among others, Atiku  and PDP maintained that the lower court erred in law when it failed to nullify the presidential election held on February 25, 2023 on the grounds of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022, when by evidence before it, INEC conducted the election based on grave and gross misrepresentation, contrary to the principles of the Electoral Act 2022, based on the “doctrine of legitimate expectation”.

According to the appellants, PEPC erred in law when it refused to uphold ‘mandatoriness’ of electronic transmission of results for confirmatory and verification of final results introduced by the Electoral Act, 2022 for transparency and integrity of results in accordance with the principles of the Act and held that the petitioners were not able to prove that Electoral Act or guidelines made it mandatory for electronic collation system by INEC.

They held that the Electoral Act introduced technology in the conduct of elections, particularly in the transmission and collation of results, being the part of the election process easily susceptible to manipulation and compromise.

Theytold the apex court that it was not in dispute that INEC failed to electronically transmit the results of the presidential election from polling units to both the collation system and the I-Rev on the day of the election and that bypassing the use of the prescribed verification technology affected the entire polling units and collation of results all over the country and substantially affected the outcome of the election.

According to Atiku and the PDP, “Failure to comply with the said prescription of the electronic transmission of the results of the said election in the polling units by the presiding officers amounts to non-compliance with the provisions of Section 60(5), Section 64(4) and (5) of the Electoral Act, 2022, which requires the transfer of results of the election in the polling units by the presiding officers in the manner prescribed by INEC.”

They held that the lower court erred in law when, despite the clear provisions of the Constitution, the Electoral Act, the regulations and guidelines for the conduct of the election and the manual for election officials, it proceeded to hold, in relation to the technological device known as BVAS; that apart from using the BVAS to scan the physical copy of the polling unit results and upload same to the result viewing portal (I-Rev), there is nothing in the regulations to show that the BVAS was meant to be used to electronically transmit or transfer the results of polling unit direct to the collation system and that I-Rev is not a collation system.

They held that Section 60(5) of the Electoral Act makes it mandatory for presiding officers to transfer election.

In the same vein, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, has also appealed against the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) which upheld Tinubu’s victory.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria, Obi in a 50 grounds notice of appeal by his lead counsel, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, filed in the Supreme Court, maintained that the PEPC erred in law and thereby reached a wrong conclusion when it dismissed the petition he lodged to challenge the outcome of the presidential election held on February 25.

Among other things, he contended that Justice Tsammani-led five-member panel of the Court of Appeal wrongly occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice against him when it held that he did not specify polling units where irregularities occurred during the election.

He further faulted the PEPC for dismissing his case on the premise that he did not specify the figures of votes or scores that were allegedly suppressed of inflated in favour of President Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

Obi also accused the Justice Tsammani-led panel of erring in law when it relied on paragraph 4(1) (d) (2) and 54 of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act 2022 to strike out paragraphs of his petition.

While accusing the lower court of breaching his right to fair hearing, Obi insisted that evidence of his witnesses were wrongly dismissed as incompetent.

He told the apex court that the panel unjustly dismissed his allegation that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, uploaded 18, 088 blurred results on its IReV portal.

He alleged that the lower court ignored his allegation that certified true copies of documents that INEC issued to his legal team, comprised of 8, 123 blurred results that contained blank A4 papers, pictures and images of unknown persons, purporting same to be the CTC of polling units results of the presidential election.

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