When discussing his plans for security when he gets into power, Tinubu once said, “To start chaos is easy”, but ensuring peace is a struggle. Given the events that have unfolded since he was declared the winner of the 2023 presidential election, we can all acknowledge the challenge of maintaining peace with other political parties.
President Tinubu. [BBC Africa/Twitter]
From a controversial election win to swiftly dishing out mouth-gaping policies as president, Tinubu has been making different moves in his first days as president, and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
Many people are no longer following up on efforts to challenge Tinubu’s victory, but let’s revisit the purpose and significance of an election tribunal.
The Recap
- An election tribunal is a place where a sole judge can determine the contests or petitions alleged against a candidate during an election by all candidates.
- On March 21, 2023, four presidential candidates, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), Solomon Okangbuan of Action Alliance (AA) and Chichi Ojei of the Allied People’s Movement (APM) filed petitions at the Presidential Elections Tribunal in Abuja, seeking to nullify INEC’s declaration of Bola Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 presidential elections.
The petitions claim that the presidential election results should be annulled for the following reasons:
- At the time of the elections, Tinubu wasn’t qualified to contest, which would infer that he received “wasted votes”.
- Kasim Shettima had a double nomination, one as APC’s vice-presidential candidate and the other for a senatorial seat in the National Assembly, contrary to what’s permitted based on Section 35 of the Electoral Act.
- Tinubu failed to get 25% of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and engaged in corrupt practices that were non-compliant with the Electoral Act.
The last time we covered the election tribunals, they had just begun court proceedings, with the AA withdrawing their petitions and backing out of the race. But so much more has happened since then. Let’s fill you in:
Read: What Nigerian Lawyers and Analysts Are Saying About the Election Tribunal
A tussle over live broadcasting of court proceedings
In May 2023, Atiku and Obi had been pleading with the court to grant a live broadcast of events due to the “national import” or importance of the case. But the APC wasn’t having that at all.
Tinubu’s counsel, Wole Olanipekun, says they are there for “serious business, not a parade ground”. Thus, there was no real reason for the proceedings to be televised.
On May 23, 2023, the presidential election court ended the dispute by rejecting the applications.
Hot arguments started over INEC Chair dodging subpoenas
Things began to get hot on June 14, when LP lead counsel Livy Uzoukwu accused INEC Chairman Mahmoud Yakubu of dodging subpoenas for the production of documents.
Kemi Pinero, in defense said that they have responded to all subpoenas (including PDP’s) and that the LP counsel only wants to “stall the case”. She also said this had been a pattern of the LP for the last two weeks.
LP then tendered 18,000 blurred result sheets
On June 15, LP’s fourth witness, Eric Ofoedu, a mathematics professor who was commissioned to analyse election data in Rivers and Benue, claimed that INEC had uploaded 18 pages of unreadable data.
However, Mahmoud denied the claim. He added that the witness had sent in his statements only a few minutes before court proceedings for that day started.
How Ofoedu must have felt when his claims were dismissed
“There was no technical glitch as claimed by INEC”
Technical difficulties were a key reason voters could not view election results on the IReV (INEC Results Viewing Portal). That is, until LP’s seventh witness, Clarita Ogar, spoke on June 20.
Ogar is a cloud engineer with Amazon Web Services Incorporated (AWS), a firm INEC engaged in providing technical support. She claimed that AWS Cloud did not record any technical glitches in the country on February 25. Ogar brought six reports showing the status of the AWS dashboard of cloud services in 33 regions and certificates of compliance to back up her claims.
Tinubu’s legal team strongly disagreed with the allegation. They went to reference instances where the AWS software glitched in the past, e.g., MTN’s payment service bank in 2021.
APM has refused to back down
The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) refused to discontinue its petition challenging the election of Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s president.
Gideon Idiagbonya, APM counsel, said the party had analysed the judgement and intends to continue with the petition.
There was no objection from the court, as the panel noted that everyone is free to fight for their rights.
The PDP plans to wrap up by Friday
The PDP and Atiku have indicated they will close their case at the tribunal by Friday. But according to Chris Uche, his team had lost two of the 21 days allotted to them, with one being a public holiday,
The PDP legal team now has an extension of court. This means we should expect PDP presence for two more days.
Meanwhile, Obi is under pressure to give up the fight
A House of Representatives Member, Amobi Ogah, has asked Peter Obi and other parties’ candidates to support President Bola Tinubu.
According to him, “the election has come and gone. Now it is about governance. And whoever God has given that mandate to represent the people, you must respect that institution.”
But will Obi give up? Will shocking new evidence be uncovered? Let’s wait and see.
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