Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, has filed an appeal at the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) affirming President Bola Tinubu’s election earlier this month.
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has similarly filed his appeal to challenge the PEPC’s verdict delivered on 6 September.
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The appellants had 14 days from the date of judgement to file their appeal to challenge the verdict at the Supreme Court. The 14 days period ends on Wednesday.
Mr Obi and Atiku had filed separate petitions at the PEPC accusing Nigeria’s electoral umpire, INEC, and Mr Tinubu of electoral malpractices. They contested Mr Tinubu’s qualification to stand for election and begged the PEPC to set aside the election.
But the court, in its decision, held that they failed to substantiate their claims of electoral fraud against INEC and the president.
Another political party, the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), filed the third petition alleging improper nomination of Mr. Tinubu’s running mate and incumbent Vice President Kashim Shettima. The case was similarly dismissed by the court, but the party has not indicated any intention to pursue an appeal against the verdict.
In his notice of appeal dated 19 September, Mr Obi’s lead counsel, Livy Uzoukwu, predicated his client’s appeal to the Supreme Court on 51 grounds.
Mr Uzoukwu told the Supreme Court that the five-member panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court led by Haruna Tsammani “erred in law and thereby reached a wrong conclusion” when it dismissed Mr Obi’s suit.
Mr Uzoukwu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), faulted the presidential election court’s evaluation of Mr Obi’s evidence. He said the court erroneously ruled that Mr Obi’s case failed to establish the polling stations where electoral malpractices took place during the February presidential election.
The lawyer also said the lower court’s conclusions caused “grave miscarriage of justice” when it held that Mr Obi did not identify the specific number of votes he polled at polling units where he accused INEC and Mr Tinubu of suppression of votes.
The appellant’s lawyer urged the Supreme Court to determine if the presidential election court did not err in law when it based its reasons on the First Schedule of the Electoral Act 2022 to expunge Mr Obi’s witnesses’ statements on oath from the court’s records.
Some of Mr. Obi’s key witnesses whom the five-member panel of the court dismissed their testimonies were a web engineer, Mpeh Ogar; and a statistician, Eric Uwadiagwu.
In her report bordering on a glitch on INEC Results Viewing portal being hosted by the Amazon Web Services Incorporated, Ms Ogar said there was no glitch in the IReV system on the day of the presidential election, contrary to INEC’s excuse for not uploading polling unit results to the portal real-time on the day of the election.
As for Mr. Uwadiagwu, a professor of Mathematics, who conducted a data analysis of the results from Rivers and Benue states, the court expunged those testimonies and his report from its records..
Haruna Tsammani, who chaired the five-member panel of the PEPC, held that Mr Obi failed to accompany his petition with the statements on oath of all the witnesses at the point of filing thereby rendering their reports inadmissible.
One of the reports said results from over 18,088 polling stations contained in four boxes were blurred.
Mr Obi contended in his filing that his right to fair hearing was violated in the matter when the PEPC dismissed the evidence of 10 out of his 13 witnesses.
“The learned justices of the court below erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of justice when they held and concluded that he (Mr Obi) failed to establish the allegation of corrupt practices and over-voting,” the appellant’s lawyer argued.
The appellant also faulted the presidential election court’s decision rejecting his contention that INEC circumvented its own regulations and guidelines when it refused to electronically transmit results of the election from polling stations to the IReV.
“The petitioners adduced credible and substantial evidence, both oral and documentary, that proved substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 by the Respondents in the conduct of the election,” the notice of appeal read in part.
Tinubu’s, Shettima’s non-qualification
Arguing further, the appellant alleged that Mr Tinubu was not qualified to vie for the election on account of improper nomination of his vice-presidential pick.
Mr Obi’s lawyer, Mr Uzoukwu, said “the court below overlooked that the respondents failed to disprove the evidence of substantial non-compliance adduced by the petitioners.”
The appellant, in the filing, told the Supreme Court that the lower court ignored evidence that proved how Mr Tinubu was indicted and fined $4,600, in the US for alleged cocaine trafficking in the 1990s..
Mr Obi, who came third in the race, urged the court to either declare him president or order a fresh rerun election.
The presidential candidate and his party are expected to later file their joint appellant’s brief which will contain their full legal arguments.
INEC, Mr Tinubu, and the APC will, in response, then file their respective respondent’s briefs before the Supreme Court will fix a date for hearing.
