President Bola Tinubu has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the appeal filed by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, and the party challenging his victory in the February 25 presidential poll.
Atiku, a former Vice President, had approached the Supreme Court to nullify the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court which upheld the victory of President Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election.
The PDP presidential standard-bearer, in the Notice of Appeal predicated on 35 grounds, insisted that the tribunal in the judgement delivered by Justice Haruna Tsammani on September 6 committed a grave error and miscarriage of justice in its findings and conclusion in the petition challenging the declaration of Tinubu as president by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The Notice of Appeal filed by Atiku’s lead counsel, Chris Uche, SAN, is praying the apex court to set aside the whole findings and conclusions of the tribunal on the grounds that they did not represent the true picture of the grounds of his petition.
Atiku stated that the tribunal erred in law when it failed to nullify the February 25, 2023, presidential election on the grounds of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022, “when by evidence before the tribunal, INEC conducted the election based on grave and gross misrepresentation contrary to the principles of the Electoral Act 2022, based on the doctrine of legitimate expectation.”
However, Tinubu, in a brief of argument in response to Atiku and PDP’s appeal filed on October 11, challenged the competence of the grounds of appeal contained in Atiku’s Notice of Appeal as well as the issues formulated.
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Tinubu, who is the 2nd respondent in the appeal which has INEC and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as 1st and 3rd respondents, stated that by all extant laws, the electoral umpire has the prerogative of determining the mode and manner for the transmission of election results and that the tribunal was perfectly in order when it held so.
On the issue of 25 per cent votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) before a candidate can be declared winner of a presidential election, Tinubu, through his lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), told the apex court that there is no superiority of votes or voters, saying all votes and voters are equal.
He explained that the petitioners are required by the provisions of Section 135(1) of the Electoral Act, 2022 to establish how the non-compliance substantially affected the result of the election.
Tinubu said Atiku failed to demonstrate any reason why the apex court should disturb any of the findings of the lower court which are rooted in law and perfect demonstration of scholarship and urged the apex court to affirm the judgement of the lower court and dismiss Atiku’s appeal in its entirety for lacking in merit and bonafide.
He further asked the Supreme Court to discountenance his Chicago State University academic records attached by Atiku to his election petition appeal, saying it is alien to the judicial proceedings in the country.
Tinubu argued that the university’s discovery was not part of the record or the judgement of the tribunal, urging the apex court not to admit it.
No date has been however fixed for the hearing of the appeal.
