The verdict of the Presidential Elections Petitions Tribunal delivered poignant lessons to the litigants, lawyers and politicians, writes ADEBAYO FOLORUNSHO-FRANCIS

The judgment of the Presidential Elections Petitions Tribunal where President Bola Tinubu was reaffirmed as the winner of the contentious February 25 presidential poll may have come and gone, but the memory and impact of the verdict would continue to linger.

Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress had scored a total of 8.7 million votes to defeat the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, who polled 6.9 million and 6.1 million votes, respectively.

The five-member panel had nullified the petitions of Atiku and Obi in the 12-hour judgment delivered on Wednesday. The tribunal was chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani and assisted by Justices Stephen Adah, Monsurat Bolaji-Yusuf, Moses Ugo and Abba Mohammed. But Atiku and Obi both rejected the verdict and vowed to challenge it at the Supreme Court.

The judgment has generated heated debates and mixed reactions among Nigerians, especially on social media. To date, it is not unusual to see individuals venting their emotions over the court’s decision. Certain mischievous social media trolls had also posted the sensitive details of the five justices and called them names in the wake of the judgment.

No doubt, Obi’s tale run in the last election won him a lot of followers who may still not accept the outcome of the appeal at the Supreme Court if it did not meet their expectations.

In the build-up to the judgment, it was interesting to see the various justifications presented by the justices before deciding the case. For instance, Justice Bolaji-Yusuf did not hold back when she picked the holes in the petitioners’ cases, telling them that it wasn’t the duty of the court to scout for evidence for the parties.

She said, “They did not even bother to place such credible evidence before this court. Were they expecting the court to go and gather evidence from the street or the market? Or to be persuaded or intimidated by threats on social media. That is not the way of the court.”

Justice Ugo, on the other hand, also dismissed the assertion of the petitioners that the Independent National Electoral Commission simply closed down or blocked its result viewing portal to enable it to manipulate the election results in favour of the second respondent, Tinubu.

An amused Ugo queried whether such an allegation contained in the election petitions was ‘even worthy of belief.’ The justice expressed disappointment that the ‘’two sets of petitioners did not by any means discharge the burden on them of proving that the results of the presidential election of 25th February, 2023 as declared by 1st respondent were incorrect.’’

“At any rate, why did any of the two sets of petitioners not tender even a single polling unit result issued by INEC to their polling unit agents to support their claim of manipulation of election results by INEC, even as they all agreed that they have agents in the polling units?” he asked.

Justice Mohammed also shared the same sentiment when he argued that the petitioners failed to state the number of votes affected and the number of people disenfranchised as alleged by Atiku and Obi in their petitions.

He also stated that it was unimaginable that a petitioner would allege widespread rigging in 176,000 polling units, over 8,000 wards, 774 local government areas, the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory without stating the specific place where the alleged irregularities occurred.

Perhaps, the one that seemingly jolted many political pundits and those who have been following the legal drama keenly was the status of the FCT and the contentious claim that the election winner must score 25 per cent in the nation’s capital.

Justice Tsammani held that the capital city was not superior to a state and neither were the FCT electorates special than the voters in the other parts of the country. “Nothing more than that; the FCT is not superior to a state,” the panel chairman declared.

Notwithstanding what many analysts considered as the rich contribution of the judgment to the nation’s jurisprudence, the camps of Atiku and Obi believed that justice was not served by the tribunal.

The Director of Strategic Communications for the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Council, Dele Momodu, alleged that the court “brazenly and deliberately” turned the Constitution upside down.

Momodu, however, believed that those with good conscience will look beyond the judgment, knowing that “Nigeria shall be free.”

In the camp of the Labour Party, social rights activist and an ally of Obi, Aisha Yesufu, swore that she would never consider Tinubu as her president.

But political analysts and lawyers noted that the varied reactions to the verdict were not unexpected. A political scientist at the University of Ilorin, Dr Alada Mohammed, observed that the sentiments expressed by a cross-section of Nigerians were normal, adding, however, that the justices would only rely on the facts placed before them in arriving at their decision.

Mohammed stated, “But I think the judiciary has done well by speaking to fact. One fundamental issue we have with our judiciary in Nigeria, which is affecting the outcome of judgment, is that it does not generate evidence by itself.

It is what the petitioner(s) present before it that it will adjudicate. Just as the judges said, they won’t look for evidence on anybody’s behalf. The outcome might probably be different somewhere else.

Again, you don’t bring a case on hearsay or what people say. There must be concrete evidence even if it is not in black and white. That is the beauty of doing your own homework properly. When you have a case, you have to go the extra length since the burden of proof is on you. This is a lesson for Nigerians.’’

He further stated, “There have always been disputes over presidential election results. The 2023 presidential election case is, however, different in the sense that we have two top notch candidates who were vociferous in petitioning the judiciary to seek cancellation of the election. That speaks volume in view of the electoral process we have.’’

To reform the electoral process, Mohammed called for the amendment of the Electoral Act and the election guidelines.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Rotimi Jacobs, submitted that the judgment was fair and also decried the manner the justices were exposed to ridicule by some mischievous elements on social media shortly after the judgment was passed.

“I think the media frenzy, undue publicity and divergent opinions from Nigerians, especially politicians, on a matter that is before the court is not healthy for our democracy.

‘’This particular judgment has been delivered and binding on everybody. People should be careful the way they are bringing down the judiciary.

This is the first time I observed somebody going to social media to say that (Babatunde) Fashola was writing judgment for the tribunal. What kind of rubbish is this? Why should we degenerate as a people to this level? It is not good for us.

‘’Another one is the idea of splashing the pictures of those justices on social media and in churches where certain pastors were spotted in some viral videos praying against them is lamentable,’’ he noted.

Calling for caution, Jacobs explained that some of the issues brought before the tribunal had been settled by the court in other election petition cases.

He cited the issue of double nomination which he said had been earlier decided by the Supreme Court.

The senior lawyer said, “I think we should try to balance whatever is our political interest with national interest. There are some issues that have earlier been settled at the Supreme Court. One of them is the double nomination of Vice President Kashim Shettima. Why bring it up again and create tension?

‘’Those who are not lawyers will start thinking they are real issues. We all know the issue of Oyetola vs Adeleke has been settled. Why should any serious lawyer re-litigate it?

“This is why I think nationalism should be dear to all of us. It is high time we stopped seeing ourselves as Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa persons. The unnecessary tension we are creating over non-issue is too much.

That judgment is sound and they (Atiku and Obi) have the right of appeal. Attacking those justices is uncalled for. I have seen some people going after them again on social media. If you are not pleased with a judgment, the Supreme Court is there.”

But a human rights lawyer and Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law, Dr Monday Ubani, disagreed with the judgment.

Ubani argued that there are some grey areas that should form a ground for appeal that he was hopeful the Supreme Court can look into.

He said, “I hope the matter will still end at the Supreme Court. In that same judgment, if you take away almost all the witnesses’ statements, even if they are subpoenaed witnesses, there is no evidence. That also should be a ground of appeal whether those witnesses’ statements were rightly taken away. This is still something that will be decided by the Supreme Court.

“I don’t think we have made any progress with our Electoral Act if we say that judgment should be allowed to stand, especially with the electoral guidelines of INEC in transmitting results. But INEC just gave one excuse of glitches only in the presidential election.

‘’They didn’t have it in the governorship, Senate and House of Reps polls. I am surprised the court did not make any remark concerning it. Instead, it gave INEC a pat on the back for doing so well because, according to them, INEC did not make any promise.’’

Ubani was displeased with the alleged refusal of the tribunal to knock the INEC over its failure to transmit the election results electronically as announced before the elections.

He added, “Meanwhile, we spent billions of naira in conducting the elections and a lot of people came because of the promise of electronic transmission of results and the use of BVAS. These are very wonderful innovations.

‘’If they now turn around to say those innovations are not recognized by law and no longer apply, we are back to the beginning of our electoral journey as a country. So what was the reason for all the billions spent?”
(Punch)

The camp of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has demanded explanations from the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) on why Certified True Copies of its judgment bears the header of theBola Tinubu Presidential Legal Team.

Recall there had been insinuations that the tribunal ruling was compromised in favour of President Bola Tinubu due to the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team watermarks found on the copies in circulation on social media.

However, the coordinator of the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team, Babatunde Ogala (SAN) in a statement on Saturday debunked such insinuations.

According to him, the judgment was not compromised, and the watermarks were only applied by the team after they got their own copies of the consolidated judgment from the Court of Appeal.

Ogala explained further that the lawyers for the PDP were present at the registry when they picked up the clean copies of the tribunal ruling, adding that the PDP lawyers were even the first to pick copies of the judgement from the court registry.

In a statement to the newsmen, the Special Assistant (Communications) to Atiku, Phrank Shaibu, stated that it is very important that the PEPC should tell Nigerians why they chose to affix the header of the Respondents on the CTC copy of their judgment, whereas the copies that went to the petitioners did not have the same.

“Was that because the Tinubu Legal Team is deemed to be accorded special privileges? The court must explain!” He said.

Shaibu also questioned why the PEPC came to the decision to avail the Respondents, especially the Tinubu Legal Team to have a first receipt of the CTC of the judgment before the Plaintiffs.

His statement read: “The curiosity is more confounding based on the fact that the lead counsel to Atiku and the PDP had pleaded in the open court to have express receipt of the judgment, to which Justice Haruna Tsammani agreed to and promised to make the document available the following day, which was Thursday.

“Nigerians want to know why the PEPC confers special privileges to the Tinubu Legal Team by making them have a first custody of copies of the PEPC judgment, even though it was more urgent for the Petitioners who needed the document in order to cause an appeal to the Supreme Court within 14 days including weekends.

“In the course of delivering its judgement, the PEPC had spoken of the petition it was ruling upon in a vexatious and denigrating language as if it was a crime to bring a case of electoral banditry before the court.

“However, unfolding developments after the court’s ruling elicit suspicions about whether or not the Tinubu Legal Team provided clerical services to the PEPC. Otherwise, how and when did the ‘Tinubu Presidential Legal Team’ creep into a document that was supposed to be the official document of the Court of Appeal of Nigeria.

“We need to restate that the ‘Tinubu Presidential Legal Team’ on the top left-hand corner of all the 798 pages is neither a monochrome nor a metadata. It is actually a HEADER, meaning that except for a valid explanation, the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team is the originator of the document. For the purposes of clarity, “a header is text that is placed at the top of a page, while a footer is placed at the bottom of a page. Typically, these areas are used for inserting information such as the name of the document, the chapter heading, page numbers, creation date, and the like.” On the other hand, watermark is “a faint design made in some paper during manufacture that is visible when held against the light and typically identifies the maker of the document.”

“The PEPC must, on its honour if indeed it still has any, clarify why the court chose to put the header of the Tinubu Legal Team on a CTC copy of its judgment document, while the only emblem that should have been on the document is the stamp of the Court of Appeal of Nigeria.

“Again, the PEPC must explain why it came to the discretionary decision of having the Respondents have a custody of the judgement earlier in the day on Friday while only making same available to the Petitioners later in the day, and only after the lead counsel to Atiku and PDP had written a second letter (the first was on Thursday) to the court demanding for copies of the judgment.

“Moreover, we have it on good authority that when the PEPC was informed that the CTC copies of the judgment given to the Respondents was already circulating in the public domain with the header of TPLT on it, a further delay was necessitated by the need for it to undertake a laundry of the documents by removing the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team header before handing over same to the lawyers of Atiku.

“Whereas the legal team of the PDP and Atiku have statutory 14 days to prepare its appeal to the Supreme Court, the PEPC had erased 2 days out of that 14 days, no thanks to the PEPC whose Chairman, Justice Tsamani had promised to make available the CTC copy of the judgment to Atiku a day after its judgement was rendered, which ought to have been on Thursday.”

Atiku’s aide noted that Nigerians and the world are earnestly waiting for answers to these posers as the legal challenge shifts to the Supreme Court.

He said if explanations are not given it will validate suspicions that there were external factors involved in the formulation of the judgment and bring the entire judiciary of Nigeria into disrepute.

Shaibu said: “Make no mistake about it. This legal challenge to the electoral banditry of February 25, which has now shifted to the apex court, is not about Atiku. It is indeed our last ditch effort to salvage our country and deepen our democracy.

“Against the background of the decimation of nearly all of the institutions of state including the Independent National Electoral Commission which dragged us into this quagmire, our intent is to ensure that the judiciary, the last hope of the common man does not go to the dogs.”

(Gistnja)