Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party, have challenged the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to maintain President Bola Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 poll.
Following the tribunal’s failure to overturn the results, both parties have announced that they will file an appeal with the Supreme Court.
Chris Uche, Atiku’s lead counsel, claimed that his client had not obtained justice following the ruling. “Luckily, the law has given us leverage to go on appeal to the Supreme Court. We have instructions to go on appeal to the Supreme Court,” he said.
Mr Atiku based his case on the Independent National Electoral Commission’s failure to promptly upload election results from polling stations electronically.
According to the PDP candidate, this conduct equates to non-compliance with the electoral act, prompting him to declare that the election lacks credibility and that the results should be thrown out.
The PEPT, on the other hand, ruled that provisions 134 and 135 of the Electoral Act clarified that an election result may be challenged on the basis of noncompliance, but not revoked.
“An election shall not be liable to be invalidated by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of this Act if it appears to the Election Tribunal or Court that the election was conducted substantially in accordance with the principles of this Act and that the non-compliance did not affect substantially the result of the election.”
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Similarly, the Labour Party’s national legal counsel, Kehinde Edun, has made clear that Peter Obi will appeal the PEPT verdict to the Supreme Court.
The tribunal rejected Peter Obi’s argument that President Tinubu did not receive 25% of the votes cast in the FCT and hence could not be considered legitimately elected under the constitution.
According to the PEPT, claiming that votes from the FCT had greater weight than those from other parts of the country was futile and hollow.
The Tribunal further ruled that INEC was free to pick the means of transferring results and could not be compelled to transmit results electronically, dismissing another petition filed by Peter Obi of the Labour Party.
Meanwhile, Edun criticised the tribunal’s proceedings yesterday, claiming that the court declined to allow 10 of its 13 witnesses, weakening their case.
“That subpoena is an invitation to the person indicating that the court has given him an order to come and give evidence. So, if the court has not ordered the person, how can he give any statement?
“This is why I said the judgment is so strange. And it is on the basis that they knocked out the evidence of 10 of our 13 witnesses, which inevitably weakened our case. It is a strange judgment.”
“There are some filings that are unacceptable to us. So, we need to see what the apex court has to say to this. We have to address this, not only for today but for the sake of our jurisprudence,” he added, revealing the party’s intention to approach the Supreme Court.
