Presidential election petitions: The past, the present…

The official opening of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on Wednesday has opened a new vista for discussion in the politics of Nigeria, with students of politics and history already comparing the case and its grounds with past experiences in the country where losers of presidential elections challenged the outcome of the poll.

The Court of Appeal, which serves as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, had granted Atiku and the PDP permission to inspect and obtain the Certified True Copy (CTC) of election materials used in the conduct of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The three-member tribunal, headed by Justice Abdul Aboki, in a unanimous ruling on the exparte motion filed by Atiku Abubakar and the party, ordered INEC to make all documents and electoral materials used for the election available for the purpose of inspection. It, however, refused the applicants their prayers for scanning and forensic analysis of the election materials, among others.

Atiku’s decision to press on with his resolve to challenge the outcome of the election held penultimate Saturday had divided political actors and watchers in the country, with many including the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Chief Olisa Agbakoba and others holding the view that Atiku should not challenge the outcome of the poll, while the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, the pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) and others considered it forthright for Atiku to challenge the result, which they noted was contestable.

The PDP had, even before the conclusion of the collation, rejected the results on the ground that the results being announced by INEC were inflated in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). PDP’s National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus maintained that the results were fraught with “irregularities” and therefore, “incorrect and unacceptable.”

Shortly after the official announcement of the results by the National Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, Atiku had also rejected the outcome of the poll, stating that it was a reflection of “premeditated malpractices in many states,” even as promised to challenge the outcome in court.

“The suppressed votes in my strongholds are so apparent and amateurish, that I am ashamed as a Nigerian that such could be allowed to happen. How can total votes in Akwa Ibom, for instance, be 50 per cent less than what they were in 2015? Another glaring anomaly is the disruption of voting in strongholds of the PDP in Lagos, Akwa-Ibom, Rivers and diverse other states, with the authorities doing little or nothing and in some cases facilitating these unfortunate situations,” Atiku had stated.

But no sooner had Atiku rejected the result of the election and expressed his resolve to approach the court for redress than pressure began to mount on him from different quarters to drop his decision to challenge the outcome. From private individuals to groups, including some of the candidates who lost out in the presidential election, the explanations being given for persuading Atiku not to go to court was that he was party to the signing of a Peace Accord by all parties.

However, with the official commencement of the petition tribunal, the gears have changed from pressurising Atiku not to go to court, with Nigerians now looking forward to how events in the next few weeks and months will affect the politics of the country. Will the presidential election petition be more of the same, as past experiences have shown the winners of the elections being affirmed by the courts? Or can Atiku succeed in changing the course of history? Though Nigerians will have to wait for the next few months to have answers to many puzzles regarding the election, what has begun to replay in the minds now are the past cases of election petition tribunals and how they panned out for the challengers.

It must be noted that since the beginning of the current democratic experience in 1999, disputes over election results have always ended at the court. Only the 1999 and 2015 elections were not contested. Three other presidential elections that were held in 2003, 2007 and 2011 were all decided by the court. Interestingly the main actor in the drama of election results disputations in the other three elections is no other than President Muhammadu Buhari.

If the 1999 election was symptomatic of a democracy that refused to outgrow electoral litigation, the 2003 presidential election was like a case of contenders against the winner of the election, Chief Obasanjo, firing from all cylinders, with the candidate of the APP, General Muhammadu Buhari and that of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, both separately challenging the results of the election at the Court of Appeal and later the Supreme Court.

Ojukwu had approached the court praying for five reliefs, including a declaration that Obasanjo was not qualified to contest the election; an order invalidating the return of Obasanjo as president; an order commanding the conduct of a fresh election; an order directing the Chief Justice of Nigeria to take over as Head of State for three months pending the conduct of a fresh election and a declaration that the announcement of Obasanjo as winner was unconstitutional.

The Court of Appeal presided over by Justice Isa Ayo Salami dismissed the petition, culminating in Ojukwu approaching the Supreme Court. The apex court also upheld the dismissal of Ojukwu’s petition for lacking merit.

But if Ojukwu’s legal challenge was mild, General Muhammadu Buhari’s had been most vociferous and pugnacious, with the retired Head of State even stating at a point that only death would stop him from the legal battle against Obasanjo’s victory. Buhari, had while addressing a press conference at the party’s secretariat on the judgment of the Appeal Court, which had earlier upheld Obasanjo’s 2003 victory by dismissing his [Buhari’s] petition, said he not would not give up no matter the time it would take “to pursue his matter to its logical conclusion, we certainly hope to uncover the truth of the result of the presidential election.”

“Let me seize this opportunity to reassure Nigerians and the international community that so long as I am alive, I will never abandon this struggle. I will never tire in the pursuit of any right that belongs to the people of Nigeria. No doubt, Nigeria deserves more than what we witnessed in 2003,” Buhari had said.

Though he lost the case at the Supreme Court, he was immediately back at the courts to challenge the outcome of the 2007 presidential election in which PDP’s Umaru Musa Yar’Adua [now deceased] was declared winner. He was, however, not walking alone on that count, as the presidential candidate of the Action Congress (AC) and former vice-president of Nigeria, Atiku, had also approached the court to invalidate the  victory of Yar’Adua.

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Armed with more experience and determination, Buhari had hoped his petition against Yar’Adua’s election would produce a positive result for him, having emerged the first runner-up in the election. But this was not to be, as the Justice James Ogebe-led Presidential Elections Tribunal, returned a unanimous verdict that validated Yar’Adua’s election. The court dismissed all the grounds on which Buhari and Atiku’s petitions were premised.

The retired General was back at the court in 2011 to challenge the victory of former President Goodluck Jonathan, praying for many reliefs, including the recount of the results in several parts of the country. The election had also been trailed  by widespread violence in some parts of the North, as followers of General Buhari reacted to his loss at the poll held in April 2011, resulting in deaths of several people and destruction of properties.

But the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, presided over by Justice Kummai Bayang Akaahs, dismissed the petition on the grounds that it was baseless and lacking in merit. But the General was to proceed to the Supreme Court, where a seven-man panel of the court, again, dismissed the CPC’s appeal, stating that there was no sufficient evidence to support its petition,

Buhari had, however, in his response to the judgement, condemned the judgment, accusing the Supreme Court of turning a blind eye to gross irregularities observed during the election.

With Buhari again in the running for the Presidency in 2015, contending against an incumbent president as it was the case in two of his last three attempts, many Nigerians had expected a fierce battle that would not only be hotly contested on the political field but also in the court, going by the General’s consistent nature to challenge the outcome of elections. The election, however, turned out to be the most epochal in the history of elections in the country, as an incumbent president lost to the opposition contender. The surprises did not, however, end with President Jonathan losing; it went notches higher when he conceded defeat before the end of collation and even stopped his party, PDP, from approaching the court despite what many have termed “obvious infringements.”

Though facts were to later emerge as to several underhand dealings in the 2015 polls, including the revelation by an online medium, The Cable, that 13.5 million people, mostly from the North, voted manually without accreditation, with Jonathan’s action being continually commended as “statesmanly” and “uncommon” as far Nigeria’s politics is concerned, that action has come back to “haunt” his party, as many now draw reference to it as the premise for pressuring Atiku not to go to court.

But with the former vice-president having already opened his account with the court, the focus will shift to the legal arena where fire crackers of evidence, facts and emotions will fly in different directions. With the APC already stating that it was ready to meet the PDP in court, Nigerians should enjoy as both parties shoot from the hip in acts of political desperation to gain hold of the most coveted prize: the Presidency for the next four years.