A portion of Nigerians may have had unrealistic expectations about the Election Petition Tribunal’s decision about the outcome of the country’s 2023 presidential election, according to legal expert Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN).
He claimed that because the Supreme Court had long before rendered decisions on many of the legal theories raised in the petitions, the tribunal’s final decision was not entirely unexpected.
According to Anaedoonline.ng, the tribunal dismissed on Wednesday the applications filed by Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) contesting President Bola Tinubu’s election victory.
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Adegboruwa responded by writing a post on his Facebook page, saying the lesson is to reassess the Nigerian electoral process from the beginning.
He continued by saying that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would find it challenging to conduct a credible election at the moment and urged the electoral body to be urgently unbundled.
His words: “Today’s verdict should be a reason for sober reflection by all, especially for the parties in court, their lawyers and all lovers of democracy. The petitions could have been decided purely on points of law and within few days of the election.
“There can be no real victory in the resolution of the legal issues by the court when the fabric of our democratic engagements seem to have been hijacked and compromised. Part of the lesson in this process is for us to go back and review the electoral process and the litigations following it. INEC as it is presently constituted cannot birth any credible election in Nigeria.
“In all, maybe there was too much expectation that the status quo will be upturned, whereas many of the principles of law canvased had long been settled by the apex court.
“While encouraging all parties to continue in towing the paths already defined by law for the ventilation of grievances, we owe Nigeria an urgent duty to dismantle INEC, urgently.”
He added that, “The verdict of the Presidential Election Petition Court was not totally unexpected, given the stark realities facing us as a nation and the state of the law.
“The principles of presumption of regularity of elections and that of substantial conformity make it extremely difficult to prosecute elections successfully.
“In this particular case, the burden placed upon the petitioners in order to upturn the election was practically insurmountable. To make matters worse, INEC practically fought the petitioners to a standstill, as if it was an interested party in the whole process.
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“I honestly don’t think anyone expected a different verdict from what was delivered in Abuja today, particularly the lawyers. The tension was completely unnecessary.”
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