₦airaland Forum

seanfer:
In your myopic reasoning APC can’t petition the election tribunal that Obi is not a qualified LP candidate, but Obi can meddle into APC nominations by saying someone is not qualified to run.

zoedew:
I agree. However, Peter Obi lost the moment and the movement when he went to the Tribunal to contest the Tinubu victory when it was clear that he was third place.If I were in his shoes it would be more important for me to tend the movement in a manner that will make larger than the Labour Party and transcending party politics. That way, in four years victory would be sure. But he blew it!

OKOATA:
So in your little mind a druglord will be president even though there will be court cases that might last 180 days. Why are you so funny. He has cases of age falsification, fake results etc and you think he will still be president? Keep believing your own lies to make yourself feel good.

OKOATA:
So na druglord won rule before?

Venerable612:
You know the Law!

Well said!

The preliminary objections are quite punchy - sammarily:
1. Peter Obi does not have locus to contest the election and bring the petition at all;

2. failure to add Atiku/PDP to the petition is a huge miss, as PO can’t be declared winner if at all he is successful without first discountenancing Atiku’s votes;

3. no pleadings on polling units disruptions individually; and

4. PO’s petition is fraught with pre-election matters - and the Tribunal itself does not have jurisdiction to hear the matter.

Law is interesting! Let’s see how this place out and watch out for the Defence & potential cross petition.

OKOATA:
You know the truth but want to lie to yourself, as long as the court case isn't concluded there will be an interim. A druglord won't rule Nigeria.

zoedew:
Populism of the blind and headstrong slant have no place in the dispensation of Justice. Peter Obi was a member of LP within the 30 day period prior to the election. If he had stayed in PDP Tinubu would have found it near impossible to win.

CondenseMilk:
APC said that PO should go to court. Now that PO is in court you want the judge to dismiss the case?


Never!

Penguin2:
Lol

Finally they have come with their watery defense.

Now, let the trials begin.

Meanwhile, I join well meaning Nigerians to call for expedited hearing of the case. We should have a ruling before May 25th at the latest.

We can’t let Tinubu to be sworn in and hope that he’d let the courts be impartial.

We, sane Nigerians, say NO to a drug lord as our president.

Only criminals, thieves, idiots and vagabonds would want a drug lord as their president.

The All Progressives Congress (APC), on Monday, asked the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja to dismiss the petition filed by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, against the emergence of Bola Tinubu as the president-elect in the 25 February election.

The APC, the 4th respondent, urged the PEPC to reject the petition in its notice of preliminary objection marked: CA/PEPC/03/2023 and filed at PEPC’s Secretariat, Monday night, by Thomas Ojo, a member of the party’s legal team led by Lateef Fagbemi in Abuja.

The party asked the tribunal to dismiss the petition with substantial cost on the grounds that it lacked merit and was frivolous.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Obi, the 1st petitioner, and LP, the 2nd petitioner, had sued the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mr Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and APC as 1st to 4th respondents respectively.

The petitioners are seeking the nullification of the election victory of Messrs Tinubu and Shettima in the 25 February presidential poll.

NAN reports that while former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came second with 6,984,520 votes in the election. Mr Obi came third with 6,101,533 votes.

Atiku and the PDP are also challenging the outcome of the poll.

In the petition marked: CA/PEPC/03/2023 filed by Mr Obi and LP’s lead counsel, Livy Ozoukwu, they contended that Mr Tinubu “was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the time of the election.”

The petitioners claimed there was rigging in 11 states, adding that they would demonstrate this in the declaration of results based on the uploaded results.

Mr Obi and LP said INEC violated its own regulations when it announced the result despite the fact that at the time of the announcement, the totality of the polling unit results had yet to be fully scanned, uploaded and transmitted electronically as required by the Electoral Act.

Among other prayers, the petitioners urged the tribunal to “determine that, at the time of the presidential election held on February 25, 2023, the 2nd and 3rd respondents (Tinubu and Shettima) were not qualified to contest the election.

“That it be determined that all the votes recorded for the 2nd respondent in the election are wasted votes, owing to the non-qualification of the 2nd and 3rd respondents.

“That it be determined that on the basis of the remaining votes (after discountenancing the votes credited to the 2nd respondent) the 1st petitioner (Obi) scored a majority of the lawful votes cast at the election and had not less than 25 per cent of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the states of the federation and the FCT and satisfied the constitutional requirements to be declared the winner of the Feb. 25 presidential election.

“That it be determined that the 2nd respondent (Tinubu), having failed to score one-quarter of the votes cast at the presidential election in the FCT was not entitled to be declared and returned as the winner of the presidential election held on Feb. 25.”

Responding, the APC asked the court to dismiss the suit on the ground that Mr Obi, the 1st petitioner, lacked requisite “locus standi” to institute the petition because he was not a member of LP at least 30 days to the party’s presidential primary to be validly sponsored by the party.

It said: “The 1st petitioner (Obi) was a member of PDP until May 24, 2022.

“1st petitioner was screened as a presidential aspirant of the PDP in Apni 2022.

“1st petitioner participated and was cleared to contest the presidential election while being a member of the PDP.

“1st petitioner purportedly resigned his membership of PDP on May 24, 2022 to purportedly join the 2nd petitioner (Labour Party) on May 27, 2022.

“2nd petitioner conducted its presidential primary on May 30, 2022 which purportedly produced 1st petitioner as its candidate, which time contravened Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act for him to contest the primary election as a member of the 2nd petitioner.”

The party argued that Obi was not a member of LP at the time of his alleged sponsorship.

The APC argued that “by the mandatory provisions of Section 77 (1) (2) and (3) of the Electoral Act 2022, a political party shall maintain a register and shall make such register available to INEC not later than 30 days before the date fixed for the party primaries, congresses and convention.”

It stated further that all the PDP’s presidential candidates were screened on 29 April 29, an exercise Mr Obi participated in and cleared to contest while being a member of the party.

It argued that the petition was incompetent since Mr Obi’s name could not have been in LP’s register made available to INEC at the time he joined the party.

The APC equally argued that the petition was improperly constituted having failed to join Atiku Abubakar and PDP who were necessary parties to be affected by the reliefs sought

“By Paragraph 17 of the petition, the petitioners, on their own, stated that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar came second in the presidential election with 6,984,520 votes as against the petitioners who came third with 6,101,533 votes;

“At Paragraph 102 (ii) of the petition, the petitioners urged the tribunal to determine that 1st petitioner scored the majority of lawful votes without joining Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the petition.

“For the tribunal to grant prayer (iii) of the petitioners, the tribunal must have set aside the scores and election of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar,

“Alhaji Atiku Abubakar must be heard before his votes can be discountenanced by the tribunal,” it said.

The party said the petition and the identified paragraphs were in breach of the mandatory provisions of Paragraph 4(1)(D) of the 1st Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2022.

According to APC, Paragraphs 60 — 77 of the petition are non-specific, vague and/or nebulous and thereby incompetent contrary to Paragraph 4(1)(d) of the Ist Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2022.

It said that the allegations of non-compliance must be made distinctly and proved on a polling unit basis but none was specified or provided in any of the paragraphs of the petition.

“Paragraphs 59-60 of the petition disclose no identity or particulars of scores and polling units supplied in 18,088 units mentioned therein,” it added.

The party, therefore, argued that the tribunal lacked the requisite jurisdiction to entertain pre-election complaints embedded in the petition as presently constituted, among other arguments.

The APC urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition with substantial cost as the same was devoid of any merit and founded on frivolity.

vicdom:
That's the ruling!

fergie001:
4. BVAS machine report is the Primary Source, the tribunal erred by preferring the server report over BVAS machine report.

5. Voters register is an intrinsic part of proving over-voting. Section 137 of the Electoral Act only lightens the burden of the petitioner and does not entirely remove Voters Register.

quickberry:
No2
Is tribunal right to have ruled against innec to have returned the appelant based on primilary breaches at the tribunal.
(He ruled in PDP favour )

larryk2017:
God let the judgement favour Adeleke

yourshopkwikguy:
Appeal court is the last decision court for governorship petitions as amended in the new electoral act only presidential petitions can get to supreme Court.

Adeleke and his immediate predecessor, Adegboyega Oyetola will on March 24 know their fates in the dispute over the July 16 governorship election.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Thursday announced that judgment in the legal battle would be handed down for the two warring parties.

The Court had on March 14 reserved judgments in three appeals and a cross-appeal filed on the dispute over the governorship election.

A 3- man panel of Justices of the court led by Justice Mohammed Shuaibu, after taking the final arguments from lawyers to the parties had announced that Adeleke and Oyetola would be informed when the judgments are ready.

DAILY POST was, however, reliably informed that the make or mar judgment would be delivered on March 24.

A notice to that effect stumbled upon, specifically indicated that the verdict would be presented by 12 noon.

The substantive appeals, filed by Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke, his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), are against the January 27 judgment of the Osun State Governorship Election Tribunal, which voided Adeleke’s victory at the July 16, 2022 election.

The cross-appeal, jointly filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate in the election, Adegboyega Oyetola, is against a portion of the tribunal’s judgment.

At the time of this report, DAILY POST gathered that chieftains of PDP and APC as well as associates, friends and sympathisers of the two parties have arrived in Abuja to witness the delivery of the judgment.

ollhans45:
If they was over voting how were there able to know that those that over voted were PDP followers

duro4chang:
I think APC also appealed the case. Any information about that.

Israel Omipidan writes that the Appeal Court sitting in Abuja will on Monday begin the hearing of the Osun state 2022 governorship election appeal case.

The battle to further determine the authentic winner of the July 16 Governorship election in Osun state has shifted to the Court of Appeal, sitting in Abuja.

Barring any die-minute change, the Court of Appeal, will on Monday, March 13, hear all the parties in the matter and then proceed to communicate to them at a later time, the date for hearing the results of their critical examination of the decision of the Tribunal.

At the appeal, the parties are bound by their pleadings at the Tribunal, while the learned Justices do a holistic review of the judgement vis-a-vis the position of the law and make their own pronouncement. They will either upheld or set aside the decision of the Tribunal.

Ironically, at the Tribunal, there were two contentious issues over the issue of over-voting. Incidentally, both issues became the fulcrum upon which the minority judgement rests.

The first issue has to do with whether it was right for the Tribunal to rely on the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the BVAS report generated from the back end server of the Independent National Electoral Commissioner (INEC).

The second issue has to do with the erroneous claim that to prove over-voting, the petitioners (Adegboyega Oyetola and the APC) must produce the Voter Register.

However, in deciding the first issue, the majority judgement at the Tribunal held that since the issuing authority, which is INEC, did not at any time say the BVAS report which was generated from the back end server was an “interim one, inchoate or unsynchronised” at the time it was issued to the petitioners, the one that was issued during the pendency of the case after the petition had been filed was an afterthought, and as such it was set aside.

Hear the Tribunal: “Moreover, exhibit BVR (given to Oyetola and APC) has not been withdrawn by the first respondent (INEC), who made and issued it. The petitioners relied on exhibit BVR in maintaining this petition.

“Similarly, the exhibit tendered by the respondents after the exhibit BVR submitted by learned counsel to the petitioners were thought of after the declaration of results on the 17th day of July, 2022.

“The said conduct of the respondents, especially, the first (INEC) respondent amounts to tampering with official records. The conduct of the first respondent in the said election under consideration has produced multiple accusation reports, contrary to votes declaration, to conduct of free, fair and credible elections on the basis of one man or woman with one vote.”

The Tribunal further said: “In other words, the defenses of the respondents are tainted with fundamental flaws, irreconcilable and unreliable, incapable of defeating the credible evidence tendered by the petitioners in respect of the 744 polling units where over voting has been established.”

And for me, the position of INEC in its latest affidavit to the Court of Appeal as it relates to the fact that the accreditation data contained in the BVAS could not be tampered with or lost, as they would be stored and easily retrieved from its accredited back-end server, is a vindication of the Tribunal’s judgement which relied on the BVAS report obtained from the back end server.

For the purposes of reminder and education, here was what happened: Senator Ademola Adeleke was declared winner of the July 16, 2022 election by INEC on July 17 based on the accreditation and the result figures the BVAS transmitted, which were in the back end server.

It was these figures that the APC and Oyetola applied for and got from INEC about 10 days after the result was announced.

After filing their petitions, the PDP rushed to INEC and obtained what was later referred to as a “synchronised” BVAS report. Assuming without conceding that there should be a synchronised BVAS report, the next question to ask, which I had raised in September last year, is: on what basis then was Adeleke declared winner on July 17?

If we go by the claim of synchronisation, it means Adeleke was declared winner before “synchronisation.”

At the Tribunal, Adeleke’s counsel also argued that the Tribunal should disregard the BVAS report generated from the back end server and in its place accept the one prepared by their expert, which was generated after opening the BVAS machine. But since Adeleke was never declared winner by opening the BVAS machine, how on earth will the Tribunal be swayed to accept that? At any rate, even in that one too, the expert hired by Adeleke, Samuel Oduntan, to analyse the BVAS machine also admitted before the Tribunal that there was over-voting. The only difference is that he said it was discovered in only six polling units.

But during cross-examination, APC and Oyetola’s counsel were able to prove to him that, apart from the six he claimed over voting occurred, there were others.

“Under the supervision of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, I conducted the forensic analysis of BVAS machines. I then analysed the results with form EC8A series. My report didn’t determine who won or lost. I only gave the figures. I observed over-voting in six polling units. I was paid for the job. But it does not affect the figures and facts in my report”, Oduntan said.

Under cross-examination by petitioner’s counsel, Akin Olujinmi, SAN, Oduntan, while confronted with his witness statement and the BVAS report (Exhibit RBVR) on accreditation figure in Ward 4, unit 7, said, “In my witness statement, page 7, serial number 138, the accreditation figure as extracted on BVAS machine is 388, but on exhibit RBVR, it is 313.”

But because it is difficult to cover up lies, even in the synchronised BVAS report presented before the Tribunal by INEC, the APC and Oyetola’s legal team were able to prove over-voting in over 100 polling units across the 10 Local Government Areas, LGAs, which they were challenging.

By implication, the two BVAS reports exposed over-voting.

What is more, INEC, the beneficiary (Adeleke) and the PDP, which sponsored Adeleke, could not even agree on the BVAS reports they presented before the Tribunal. This was what led Adeleke’s counsel to disown even the synchronised BVAS report INEC presented to the Tribunal.

Again, INEC witness, who testified before the Tribunal did not disown the BVAS report given to Oyetola and APC and she admitted under cross-examination that there was indeed over-voting in that election. Take note that apart from the BVAS report obtained by APC and Oyetola, all other BVAS reports were generated after the petition had been filed and served. Therefore, it was easy for the Tribunal to conclude that they were products of afterthought.

On the second issue, which has to do with voter register as part of the instrument to prove over-voting or otherwise at a Polling Unit, the Tribunal held that the facts and the law applicable in the petition under review were different from the one being cited by the counsel to the respondents.

I had argued in one of my interventions that the 2022 Electoral Act, which was the law that guided the conduct of the July 16 Osun Governorship election, does not envisage the provision of Voter Register to prove over-voting or otherwise since accreditation is strictly by BVAS. And this was the position of the Tribunal. So, we wait to see how the Court of Appeal would handle the matter.

As I conclude, let me reiterate here that Oyetola and APC had approached the Tribunal on two fundamental grounds: One, that as at the time Senator Adeleke was contesting, he was not qualified. Two, that he did not score the lawful valid votes. Since I had dealt with the second ground above, it is important to say a thing or two about the first ground.

According to the Tribunal led by Justice Tertsea Kume, APC and Oyetola were able to prove forgery case against Governor Adeleke as Form EC9, which is the affidavit in support of personal particulars about the governor, told “a lie about itself.”

The three justices of the Tribunal went further to hold that “clear reading of the above reproduced section of the Criminal Code and exhibit EC9 reproduced above reveals that EC9 tells a lie about itself. See ACN vs. Lamido (2011) LPELR-91741 (CA) 1 at 79 80 paras C- A, and 80 81 paras F- A.

“In that regard, forgery of the said documents presented by the 2nd Respondent (Ademola Adeleke) to 1st Respondent (INEC) has been proved.

“The same consequence applies to FILE D in so far as the contents therein relate to ‘Osun State’ that was not in existence before 1991. See PDP v. Degi-Eremenyo (2021) 9 NWLR (Pt. 1781) 274 at 292 paras A-C cited by learned counsel for the Petitioners.”

The Tribunal Justices went further to hold as follows: “The question, however, is whether having found forgery in parts of exhibit EC9 and FILE D, the 2nd Respondent (Ademola Adeleke) is exonerated by exhibits 2R.RW6 and 2R.RW9. We think he is. It would have been otherwise if no other qualifying certificate of attendance at an institution had been presented to 1st Respondent for the election.”

To test the position of the Tribunal, Oyetola and APC also filed a cross Appeal, insisting that having found that forgery was proved against Governor Ademola Adeleke, the tribunal ought to have held pursuant to Section 182(1)(j) that he was disqualified from contesting the Osun State Governorship election of July 16, 2022.

“Once forgery of a document is established against a candidate in an election, it voids his candidature and the forgery cannot be redeemed or cancelled out by any other document the candidate may have presented alongside the forged document,” Oyetola’s counsel in his notice of cross appeal submitted.

If the Appeal Court agrees with Oyetola, then, it is likely to set aside the decision of the Tribunal which specifically said Senator Ademola Adeleke was qualified to run for the July 16 Governorship election even after establishing a forgery case against him.

Nigerians indeed wait on the Court of Appeal as it hears the Appeal and Cross Appeal on Monday, March 13, 2023.

-Omipidan writes from Ila Orangun in Osun State