President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima have offered reasons why the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP), and their presidential candidates, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, should have their petitions dismissed by the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
According to news reports, Tinubu and Shettima maintain that claims that a candidate must receive 25% of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to be declared president could be the result of a misreading of the Constitution or a misunderstanding of the relevant provisions of the nation’s ground norm.
These contributions were gathered as part of their arguments in two sets of final written addresses filed on the petitions by Atiku/PDP and Obi/LP challenging the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.
According to The Nation, the Tinubu/Shettima legal team, directed by Wole Olanipekun (SAN), filed the two final addresses on Friday.
Tinubu and Shettima described both petitions as strange and hollow, arguing that neither set of petitions provided relevant evidence to support the plaintiffs’ claims that the election was not held in accordance with relevant laws or that the APC presidential and vice presidential candidates were not qualified to contest the election.
The defendants claimed the suits could not even be considered petitions under the country’s electoral laws because they did not “complain about election rigging, ballot box snatching, ballot box stuffing, violence, thuggery, vote buying, voters’ intimidation, disenfranchisement, or interference by the military or the police, and such other electoral vices.”
“The crux of their grouse, in their petitions, is that this time around, while the presidential election was peacefully conducted all over the country (as corroborated by their primary witnesses; that is, the Presiding Officers (POs) and the results accurately recorded in the various Form EC8As, some unidentified results were not uploaded electronically to the INEC Election Result Viewing (IREV) portal,” Tinubu and Shettima said.
Weeks After Inauguration, Tinubu Yet To Move Into Aso Villa Residence
Continuing, they said: “The other remote contention of the petitioners is that the 2nd respondent (Tinubu) did not score 25 percent or one-quarter of the votes recorded in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja (FCT); while the petitioners have also tersely alluded to the respondent’s non-qualification, without providing any fact of same in the body of their petitions.”
They claimed that the petitioners failed to provide appropriate and relevant evidence to support their claims, as required by law.
Tinubu claimed victory with 8,794,726 votes, ahead of Atiku/PDP, “who were his closest rival, though trailing at a distance with the total of 6,984,520 votes,” and Obi/LP, who “came a distant third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.”
Furthermore, the defendants claimed that while they received more than 25% of the total votes cast in 29 states, Atiku received the same in 21 states, while Obi received 25% in only 16 states and the FCT.
Presidential Tribunal: INEC Chairman, Yakubu To Tender Voter Register On June 16
They said that it was hilarious that while Atiku received 16.13 percent of the votes cast in the FCT, compared to Tinubu’s 19.76 percentscore in the same territory, is not only seeking to be declared the winner of the election, he also wants Tinubu’s victory voided on the grounds that he (Tinubu) did not score 25 percent of the votes cast in the FCT.
Citing previous decisions of the Supreme Court on the status of the FCT, the respondents said: “There is no punctuation (comma) in the entire Section 134(2)(b) of the Constitution, particularly immediately after the ‘states’ and the succeeding ‘and’ connecting the Federal Capital Territory with the states.
“In essence, the reading of the subsection has to be conjunctive and not disjunctive, as the Constitution clearly makes it so.
“Pressed further by this constitutional imperative, the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, is taken as if it is the 37 state, under and by virtue of Section 299 of the Constitution.
“With much respect, any other interpretation different from this will lead to absurdity, chaos, anarchy, and alteration of the very intention of the legislature.
UPDATE: Peter Obi Allegedly Trolls Tinubu Over School And Certificate Crisis
“Our courts have always adopted the purposeful approach to the interpretation of our Constitution, as exemplified in a host of decisions, including but not limited to Nafiu Rabiu v. State (1980) 12 NSCC 291 at 300-301, Marwa v Nyako (2012) 6 NWLR (Pt. 1296) 199, 306 — 307, ADH Limited v AT Limited (2006) 10 NWLR (Pt. 986) 635, 649, Awolowo v. Shagari (supra), Abraham Adesanya v. President, Federal Republic of Nigeria (1981) 12 NSCC 146 at 167-168; A.G Abia v. A.G Federation (2002) 6 NWLR (Pt. 763) 265 at 365.
“The petitioners themselves admit this much in paragraph 107 of their petition, where they listed the FCT as the 37 state, after listing the States mentioned in section 3(1), as numbers 1 to 36.”
According to Tinubu and Shettima, it was ironic that the LP candidate, who finished third in the poll, sought to be named the winner.
According to the respondents, the Obi/LP petition was based on frivolous claims that the election results were not electronically uploaded to the IREV, that the election was not conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 (EA), and that the Tinubu/Shettima ticket was illegal because Shettima was not properly nominated.
Atiku Vs Buhari: Legal Fireworks As Tribunal Set To Begin
They went on to say that Atiku and Obi’s petitions, which were filled with contradictory and inconsistent assertions, were also based on “some fishing expeditions relating to some purported forfeiture proceedings in the United States of America (US).”
They criticized the petitioners’ claim about Tinubu and Shettima’s qualifications, claiming that not only did the petitioners fail to prove their allegations, but both respondents provided ample evidence to establish that they were eminently qualified to run for president and vice president.
Tinubu and Shettima added: ”Largely, the election went very peacefully, under a free and fair atmosphere, without proof of violence, ballot box snatching and such other electoral irregularities and vices; a state of affairs to which the petitioners’ witnesses all testified.
“In fact, the election was conducted in substantial compliance with the principles of the Electoral Act, the INEC Regulations and Manuals for the election.
Tinubu About To Appoint Peter Obi’s Man As Minister – Bwala Alleges
“Coincidentally, a host of the witnesses called by the petitioners corroborated the unstable and/ or unpredictable nature of technological devices/applications within the Nigerian terrain.”
Tinubu and Shettima contended that both petitions are not only devoid of form or substance, but also rife with repetitions, contradictions, and ambiguity.
The respondents pointed out that the petitioners cynically claimed non-compliance with the Electoral Act on the flimsy basis that polling unit results were not electronically transmitted and uploaded on the IREV (where collation did not take place); their witnesses admitted that manual collation took place from the polling unit level to the national level.
They added that while petitioners claimed that Tinubu did not emerge winner with the highest number of lawful votes cast, throughout the petitions and during the trial, “at no portion did they state what they considered as the lawful votes cast for both parties and the number of unlawful votes added to the respondent’s, or the number of votes unlawfully deducted from their own votes.”
UPDATE: Tinubu, Shettima, INEC Reject Tribunal Proceedings Live Broadcast
While describing the evidence by the 27 witnesses called by Atiku/PDP and the 13 by Obi/LP as unreliable, Tinubu and Shettima argued that their sole witness successfully established their case.
They added that their sole witness, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele (the Senate Majority Leader), “demonstrated undoubted competence to testify in respect of the subjects submitted before the court, including issues surrounding the US proceedings, himself being a US practicing attorney and counselor at law.
“Also, being a lawmaker, who participated in the enactment of the Electoral Act, 2022, he stated the position and intention of the legislature, particularly as it relates to the appropriate mode of transmission as well as transfer and collation of results.”
In rounding off the written address on the Obi petition, Olaonipekun said: “In concluding this address, may we draw your Lordships’ attention to the memorable pronouncement of the Supreme Court in Elias v. Omo-Bare (1982) 5 SC 13 at 22, where Udo-Udoma, JSC, opined thus: “If there was ever any case completely starved of evidence, this is certainly one.
“This case clearly cries to the high heavens in vain to be fed with relevant and admissible evidence. The appellant woefully failed to realize that judges do not act like the oracles of Ife, which are often engaged in crystal gazing and thereafter would proclaim a new Oba in succession to a deceased Oba.
Breaking:Tribunal Court Rules On Atiku’s Claim On INEC Server
“Judges cannot perform miracles in the handling of civil claims, and least of all manufacture evidence for the purpose of assisting a plaintiff win his case.”
“In every material particular, the above excerpt from the Supreme Court judgment describes this petition in very clear terms.”
Follow us on Facebook
Post Disclaimer
The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author and forum participants on this website do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of Anaedo Online or official policies of the Anaedo Online.