The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) Wednesday affirmed President Bola Tinubu was duly elected President in the February 2023 presidential election.
The petitions were brought by Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP); and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).
The judges who handled the matter are: Justice Haruna Tsammani, Justice Stephen Adah, Justice Monsurat Bolaji-Yusuf, Justice Moses Ugo and Justice Abba Mohammed. They are all Court of Appeal justices.
Justice Haruna Tsammani, in the lead judgment, affirmed the declaration and return of Tinubu as the winner of the election having scored the highest lawful votes.
He held that none of the three sets of petitioners was able to prove their allegations as contained in the petitions
The judges reached the conclusion after a 12-hour sitting. The five justices unanimously ruled in favour of the President.
They described petitions by Atiku Abubakar/PDP, Peter Obi/LP and Princess ChiChi Ojei/Allied Peoples Movement (APM) as unmeritorious. They dismissed the consolidated petitions.
The petition against the nomination of Vice President Kashim Shettima as running mate was also found to be untenable.
But the PDP and the LP rejected the judgment. They are also thinkering with the idea of heading for the Supreme Court.
The court ordered the parties to bear their respective costs.
In the lead judgment in the petition by Obi and his party, which was decided before that of Atiku and his party, which was delivered by the Chairman, Justice Tsammani, the court held that it was wrong for the petitioner to have argued that Tinubu was not qualified, owing to a forfeiture order by a United States court.
The court found that the proceeding leading to the order was a civil forfeiture and not strictly criminal one as claimed by the petitioners.
It held that for somebody to be disqualified under the constitution, there must be indictment, trial, conviction and sentencing, which never occurred in the US court case.
The court held that the fine imposed by the US court was not a fine for fraud or dishonesty as provided in Section 137(1)(d) of the constitution.
It added that the petitioners evidently failed to prove their case that Tinubu was disqualified by virtue of the decision of the US court, adding that Obi and the LP did not comply with the requirement of Section 249(1) and (2) of the Evidence Act in proving conviction outside the country, by tendering a letter issued by a police officer in the foreign country, which the petitioners failed to do.
The tribunal held that the US court case was in respect of a civil case, not a criminal case, adding that even if it was to be a criminal case, Section 137(1)(e) of the constitution requires that such conviction or fine must be within 10 years for such a person to be disqualified.
The court restated its decision in the petition by the APM that Shettima engaged in double nominations and was not disqualified from contesting the election.
The court faulted the petitioners, stating that in addition to scoring one-fourth of the votes in at least two-third of the 36 states of the federation, a candidate in presidential election is also required to score one-fourth of the votes cast in the FCT before he/she can be deemed to have been duly elected.
Justice Tsammani noted that the petitioners’ interpretation of Section 134(2)(d) of the constitution was founded principally on a fixation that the word ‘and’ appearing between the expression ‘he has not less than 1/4 of the votes cast at the election in at least 2/3 of the states of the federation and the FCT, ‘ was “completely falacious, if not outrightly ridiculous.
The tribunal stated that “even their recourse to the case of Abubakar and Yar’Adua does not help their argument…”
Relying on past decisions by the Supreme Court, Justice Tsammani held that the FCT is to be treated like every other states of the federation.
He added: “If the FCT is to be treated like every other states of the federation, then, it is not superior than any other states of the federation.
“It is also my considered view that if the framers of the constitution had wanted to make the scoring of 1/4 votes in the FCT a distinct requirement for the return of a presidential candidate, they would have made that requirement clear by using words that clearly separate the scoring of 1/4 of votes in the FCT as a distinct requirement.
