Supreme Court begins sitting on Atiku, Obi, APM appeal against Tinubu’s victory

The battle to nullify the electoral victory of President Bola Tinubu in Nigeria’s disputed February 25 presidential election now shifts to the Supreme Court.

This is as the apex court is set to hear the appeals instituted by candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar; that of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), today.

The Supreme Court had last Thursday, fixed Monday, October 23, as the date it will begin hearing on the appeals filed by the opposition parties that were dissatisfied with the ruling at the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) and the verdict of the Appeal Court.

The contending parties which faulted the verdicts, had then filed fresh motions at the Supreme Court on different grounds but all seeking to nullify Tinubu’s victory.

On his part, Atiku is seeking the apex court’s permission to tender fresh evidence on Tinubu’s academic records which he obtained from the Chicago State University (CSU), and he claims showed that the documents the president submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) prior to the election were forged.

Atiku also accused the PEPC of reaching its decision based on “gross misconstruction and misrepresentation of provisions of both the 1999 Constitution, as amended, and the Electoral Act, 2022.”

In his application to the Supreme Court, Atiku had averred that some of the “presiding officers that handled the BVAS machines at different polling units on the election day, had in their testimony before the PEPC, confirmed the non-transmission of results of the presidential election electronically from the BVAS machines, whereas results of the National Assembly election that held simultaneously, were electronically transmitted without difficulty.”

In his appeal, candidate of the LP, Peter Obi, had argued that the PEPC panel erred in law and thereby reached a wrong conclusion when it dismissed his petition.

Read also: Supreme Court to hear Atiku’s application on fresh evidence against Tinubu Monday

He accused the panel of wrongly evaluating the proof of evidence he tendered before it and “occassioned a grave miscarriage of justice” when it held that he did not specify polling units where irregularities occured during the election.

Obi further faulted the PEPC for dismissing his case on the grounds that they did not specify the figures of votes or scores that were allegedly suppressed or inflated in favour of President Tinubu and the APC.

The APM’s appeal also seeking to nullify the election of Tinubu, is based on the APC fielding Kashim Shettima as Tinubu’s running mate when he was not allegedly validly nominated.

According to the party, the placeholder nominated by Tinubu, Ibrahim Masari, was not replaced within the 14 days stipulated by Section 33 of the Electoral Act.

APM argued that sections 131 and 142 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, were inextricably linked “and neither can be confined as a pre-election matter, as these qualifications are condition precedents to being elected to the office of President.”

The party is therefore, praying for the Supreme Court to nullify and void all votes scored by APC in the Presidential election, as well as to make an order, directing INEC to return the second-highest score at the election as the winner of the presidential contest.

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