An Abuja-based lawyer, Mr Emmanuel Ekwe, said the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja in the petitions against the election of Bola Ahmed Tinubu was far from the expectations of Nigerians.
The PEPC had, on Wednesday dismissed the petitions brought before it by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and the former Vice President, Abubakar Atiku and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), challenging the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
Justice Haruna Tsammani, leading a five-member panel of Justices of the court held in the judgement that all the petitions were bereft of merit and accordingly dismissed by the court.
In his reaction to the judgement, Mr Ekwe said, Nigerians expected an outcome that will improve the electoral jurisprudence and democracy.
The lawyer said, “Why would the five-member panel hold that the witness statement of an unwilling subpoenaed witness must be frontloaded and filed along with the petition? That is preposterous.
“The panel merely enacted a factual impossibility, which has invariably resulted in a miscarriage of Justice with the resultant striking out of critical oral and documentary evidence of petitioners’ witnesses”, he added.
The lawyer said a petition must be filed within 21 days of the declaration of the result of the election and within those 21 days, the panel which will issue and sign the subpoenas would not even have been inaugurated.
“How then do you compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman or Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) to donate to you a witness statement on oath against his wish, without a subpoena ordering them to do so?
He said, the policy implication of holding that INEC is under no obligation to transmit results electronically signals a return to the era of collation fraud and untamed impunity.
According to the lawyer, “The implication of the judgment is that all the innovations and checkmates against electoral fraud contained in the 2022 Electoral Act have been capriciously cast into the dustbin of history.”
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