• Legal Team Formed, Predicts Atiku and Obi Will Face Defeat at Tribunal
• Court Orders INEC to Allow Presidential Candidates of PDP and LP to Inspect Election Materials
  

Yesterday, the Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) argued that the concerns raised about the failed electronic transmission of results by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party in the February 25 Presidential election were not backed by legal support.

During a press conference in Abuja, the media team of the APC PCC commended the decisions of Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi to challenge the results of the recent presidential election. The APC PCC also expressed confidence that Atiku and Obi will face defeat in court. To support this, they revealed that a legal team had been established to protect the mandate given to the party and the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.

Mr. Dele Alake, the Special Adviser on Media and Communication of the APC PCC, specifically addressed the concerns raised by the PDP and LP regarding the electronic transmission of results. He cited Section 38 of the Electoral Act 2022 and claimed that it had nothing to do with the transmission of election results.

It is worth noting that the APC PCC’s remarks could potentially have significant implications for the outcome of the legal challenges to the presidential election results. However, it remains to be seen how the legal proceedings will unfold and what impact they will have on the Nigerian political landscape. Further developments are expected in the coming weeks and months.

Alake said: Section 60, Sub-section 2 of the Act deals with transmission of results and it is at the discretion of INEC. The Act does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the transmission of results.

“In any case, the process of transmitting results from polling units, whether real-time, two days later or at any time, cannot in any way change the results that have been announced right after the counting in the presence of the parties’ agents and to the hearing of the voters. It is, therefore, nonsensical to insinuate that time variation in uploading results would cause a change in the figures.

“Those who laid claim to democratic credentials are expected to be conscious of those inimitable minimum requirements of law and order even in the face of a perceived injustice.”He noted that “the initial knee-jerk and hothead call for anarchy by their proxies was ill-advised and would in no way serve any noble cause,” saying it was good to know that reason has prevailed.

Alake stated: “We must thank the two of them for finally opting for the rule of law as against the initial belligerent posture as they continue their baseless journey of chasing after a mirage.”He said the ruling party welcomed “the decision of both the PDP and LP and also the NNPP candidates to test their claims, as ridiculous as they are, in the court of law as provided for by the constitution.”

Alake stressed that this was without prejudice to the conciliatory efforts of Tinubu.Alake said: “We must say, however, that listening to both Atiku and Obi yesterday left us in the APC family confounded. We understand that there has been an orchestrated campaign by the acolytes of PDP and LP in the media to discredit the presidential election.

“What we did not expect is that the two presidential candidates and, indeed, their political parties, would shamefully re-echo the puerile and unimaginative arguments that are being canvassed by political illiterates and mischief-makers who are crying wolf on social media.” Alake said the two otherwise experienced politicians are pinpointing lack of adherence to the guidelines as basis for discrediting the votes lawfully cast by Nigerians.

The campaign noted that the claim that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did not use the BVAS was false.Alake explained that those who voted across Nigeria, including Atiku and Obi, were accredited by BVAS.He said, “save for the bad losers that Atiku and Obi have proven to be, they should rather be celebrating the tremendous improvement the use of BVAS has brought to the country’s electoral process.”

Alake pointed out that the 2023 presidential election was a watershed as it produced unprecedented outcomes and defied conventions.He said the deployment and use of BVAS was the only reason the elections produced these strange outcomes and upsets in many cases.The campaign noted: “The loss of Katsina and Lagos to PDP and LP respectively were contrary to expectations. BVAS brought the intended credibility to voters’ accreditation such that many governors and well-established politicians lost elections in what should be safe bet areas.

“The era of ghost-voting and stuffing of ballot boxes is gone. As the experience in the last governorship election in Osun State has shown, over-voting would automatically lead to outright cancellation of the results of the polling units based on the provision of the new Electoral Act.

“The same PDP that is trying to pull the wool across the face of Nigerians was the culprit in the Osun State governorship election. Did they try to do it this time and it failed? Or did they do it in the areas they unexpectedly won? Did they have a grand plan to hack the INEC server if results were uploaded in real time? Nigerians will soon find out.”

Alake stressed that contrary to the false claims of Atiku and Obi, the reasons for losing the elections were foretold, adding that besides the delusional expectations created during the campaigns to hoodwink the public, most PDP leaders knew their party had been decimated by Mr. Peter Obi.He said the South-east and South-south that were traditional strongholds of PDP constituted the core support base for the Labour Party.

Alake stated: “PDP went into this election without its limbs and lied to itself that it could win the race. It is worthy of note that Atiku also accepted this fact during his press conference yesterday, when he lamented that his party’s votes in the South-east and South-south regions were carted away by the LP.“The PDP also found itself in No.3 in Kano, with a former member, Kwankwaso running away with over 900,000 votes.

“How far could the PDP have gone with what was left of it? Not so far as the results of the elections have shown. The members of G65 were key leaders of the party who had substantial political influence. They also went away with their own pound of flesh, leaving a crippled PDP to scavenge for crumps of votes.”For Obi, Alake said he “would go down as Nigeria’s most dangerous and divisive politician,” saying “he elevated his well-known clannish mentality to a most unfortunate height by openly anchoring his campaign on religion and ethnicity.”

He said, “Obi presented himself as a poster boy for and a champion of the country’s fault lines and also took advantage of the youths whose expectations are fast-paced, who are uninterested in excuses, and who were in search of a hero.”Alake said, “Obi pumped up their sentiments and rode on their emotions while grandstanding as a saviour with pretense.”Alake said If the Labour Party could not fill up its quota for polling booth agents with a shortfall of over 40,000, how did it intend to compete with political parties like APC and PDP?

He said: “It would be interesting to see what evidence of rigging the Labour Party will present before the court when the party could not appoint agents to monitor nearly a quarter of the venues of election.

“As we look forward to an encounter with both the PDP and LP at the court, we want to enjoin the two of them to pursue their grievances with decorum. They should encourage their members, supporters, and ethnic and religious consultants to follow the path of the rule of law.

“We note that both Atiku and Obi are claiming victory. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to agree who the actual winner is before challenging APC in court? Meanwhile, the APC train has left the station, as we continue our effort to make Nigeria better for all Nigerians.”

At the press briefing, the Spokesperson of the PCC, Festus Keyamo, announced that a legal team had been constituted by the APC to defend its presidential mandate.Though he did not reveal the names of members of the legal team, Keyamo only identified himself as part of the legal team.He said: “As I am talking to you, we have constituted our legal team. We are going to court too. Let it not be that they are the only ones going to court. I am part of the legal team.”Court Orders INEC to Allow Atiku, Obi Inspect Presidential Election MaterialsIn a related development, the Court of Appeal yesterday granted the request of Atiku and Obi to inspect documents used by INEC for the conduct of the February 25 presidential election.

Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, who respectively placed second and third in the presidential election that was won by Bola Tinubu of the APC, have been granted permission to inspect the election materials used by INEC. The Court of Appeal in Abuja granted this permission following two separate Exparte Applications filed by Atiku and Obi.

Atiku and Obi are alleging substantial non-compliance with electoral laws, as well as violence and rigging, which they claim impacted the conduct and outcome of the election. In response, they have vowed to raise their concerns at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal which is yet to be constituted.

At separate media briefings held in Abuja, the two candidates expressed their determination to pursue their grievances to the fullest extent possible. They hope that the inspection of election materials will yield evidence that will support their allegations of malpractice.

It remains to be seen what the inspection of the election materials will reveal and how the legal proceedings will unfold. Nonetheless, the developments so far suggest that the legal challenges to the outcome of the presidential election are far from over. The coming weeks and months are likely to be significant for the Nigerian political landscape.

On March 1, Atiku Abubakar filed a motion seeking permission from the Court of Appeal to inspect the materials used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the conduct of the presidential election. On the other hand, Peter Obi filed his own motion on March 2. Adedamola Faloku, Atiku’s lawyer, argued that the motion was brought before the court pursuant to Section 146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, Paragraph 47 (1, 2 &3) of the first Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022, and under the inherent jurisdiction of the Court as referenced by Section 6 (6) A & B of the 1999 Constitution.

The application, which was based on six grounds, sought seven reliefs, and a schedule of the documents to be inspected was contained in the application, supported by a 12-paragraph affidavit. Counsel to the applicant adopted all the averments contained in the affidavit and urged the Court to grant the application. In a separate application, Obi’s lawyer, Mr. Alex Ejeseme SAN, also requested the Court of Appeal to grant the reliefs sought in the motion ex-parte in the interest of justice.

In addition to the information provided, the presiding judge, Joseph Ikyegh, heard the arguments put forth by both Atiku and Obi’s lawyers and subsequently granted their request to inspect the election materials used by INEC in the February 25 presidential election. It should be noted that the Chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, declared Bola Tinubu of the APC as the winner of the election after he had secured the majority of votes and met the constitutional benchmark of scoring 25% in two-thirds of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.