Politics

Tinubu to S’Court: Obi, LP’s appeal mere jamboree, fishing expedition

President Bola Tinubu has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the appeal filed by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, challenging his victory in the February 25 presidential poll.

Tinubu described the appeal filed against his election victory as a jamboree intended mainly for media entertainment.

Obi and the Labour Party had filed an appeal at the Supreme Court against the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court which upheld the victory of Tinubu in the 2023 election.

The LP and Obi approached the apex court on 51 grounds which they termed an error in law to “prove that the All Progressives Congress, APC Presidential Candidate in the election, Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not win the election and that it was wrong for both INEC and the PEPC to declare him winner of the election when many incontrovertible points were proving otherwise.”

In their reliefs, Obi and the Labour Party sought from the apex court, four key points which are “allow the appeal, set aside the perverse judgement of the PEPC, and grant the reliefs sought in the petition, either in the main or in the alternative.”

However, Tinubu, in the respondent brief filed alongside Vice President Kashim Shettima by their team of lawyers led by Wole Olanipekun (SAN), prayed the Supreme Court to dismiss the Obi/LP appeal just like the tribunal dismissed their petition.

“In short, the entire petition was nothing but a jamboree of sort, which was prosecuted more in the media than in the courtroom and the lower court, being a court of law and not of sentiments, dutifully threw away their petition after a painstaking consideration of same,” they stated.

The lawyers stated that the Obi/LP appeal “if considered from every angle, is lacking in merit, substance and good faith”.

They said: “Be it noted that unlike previous election petitions over which this honourable court has presided (in time past) and made far-reaching pronouncements on diverse issues, including but not limited to ballot box snatching, vote buying, voters’ intimidation, interference by the military, thuggery, ballot stuffing, violence, disenfranchisement, non-recording of votes in form EC8A, which is the building block or the base of the pyramid, and such other electoral vices, this appeal arising from a dismissed petition, the main grouse of which is that, while the presidential election was peacefully conducted all over the country, and results of elections carefully and accurately recorded in the various form EC8As, some unidentified and unspecified results, even in the appellants’ brief were not uploaded electronically to the IREV portal.

“The other very remote contention is that the 2nd respondent did not score 25 per cent of the votes recorded at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

“With much respect to the appellants, the petition is more of a fishing expedition; much more of evocation of thunder without dews.

“We submit that the lower court (PEPC) rightly held that the appellants (Obi and LP), as petitioners before it, failed to prove their allegations of non-compliance and corrupt practices as required by law.”

The lawyers also called a similar appeal filed by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) challenging Shettima’s nomination to contest the February 25 election as a mere waste of the time of the court.

On the appellants’ claim that Shettima had double nomination, the respondents urged the court to reaffirm its earlier judgement on the issue in the case marked: SC/CV/502/2023 – Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) v. INEC & 3 others delivered on May 26, 2023.

The APM had, in its petition before the tribunal, claimed that Shettima violated the province of the Electoral Act on the grounds that he allegedly had double nominations – as candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Borno Central Senatorial District and as vice presidential candidate.

The Star