PEPT Judgment: Obi, LP Storm Supreme Court, File 51 Grounds Of Appeal

BY SEGUN ADEBAYO – The Labour Party (LP) Presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, on Tuesday, stormed the Supreme Court with an appeal seeking to nullify the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT)’s judgment affirming President Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the valid winner of the February 25, 2023, presidential election.

In pursuit of justice in his case, the former Anambra State Governor, through his team of lawyers led by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), filed 51 grounds of appeal before the nation’s apex Court.

The Labour Party flag bearer, who came third in the presidential poll according to figures declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), said the Tribunal erred in law and thereby reached a wrong conclusion when it dismissed his petition.

Alleging that the panel wrongly evaluated the proof of evidence he adduced before it and occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice by ruling that he did not specify polling units where irregularities occurred during the election, Obi and the LP faulted the Tribunal for dismissing their case on the premise that they did not specify the figures of votes or scores that were allegedly suppressed of inflated in favour of President Tinubu and the APC.

In its ground seven, Obi affirmed that the justices also erred in law and occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice when they held that the onus was on the appellants to prove the 1st respondent failed to comply with the mandatory requirements of section 73(2) of the Electoral Act in the conduct of the questioned presidential poll.

Equally accusing the Justice Tsammani-led five-member panel of erring in law when it relied on paragraphs 4(1) (d) (2) and 54 of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act 2022 to strike out paragraphs of the petition, Obi accused the Tribunal of breaching his right to a fair hearing, insisting that evidence of his witnesses were wrongly dismissed as incompetent.

Obi, who informed the Supreme Court that the Tribunal unjustly dismissed his allegation on INEC uploading 18,088 blurred results on its IReV portal, accused the lower court of ignoring his allegation that Certified True Copies (CTC) of documents that INEC issued to his legal team, comprised 8,123 blurred results that contained blank A4 papers, pictures and images of unknown persons, purporting same to be the CTC of polling units results of the presidential election.

Obi further submitted in his appeal thus; “The learned justices of the court below erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of justice when they held and concluded that he failed to establish the allegation of corrupt practices and over-voting.”

Obi and the LP disagreed with the court’s submission that paragraph 72 of their petition was vague, insisting that it constituted a complaint of over-voting in polling units in 13 states pleaded in the petition namely Ekiti, Oyo, Ondo, Taraba, Osun, Kano, Rivers, Borno, Katsina, Kwara, Gombe, Yobe and Niger States ‘’with full and specific itemization in the forensic report produced/tendered by the appellants which was unlawfully discountenanced by the court below.’’

According to the former governor, it was wrong for the Tribunal to rely on the legal principle of estoppel to dismiss his contention that INEC bypassed its own regulations when it refused to electronically transmit the results of the election from polling units to the IReV.

To further strengthen his ground for appeal, Obi’s lawyers said; “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 court below overlooked that the Respondents failed to disprove the evidence of substantial non-compliance adduced by the petitioners,” the Appellants stated, adding that the panel wrongfully dismissed the issue of double nomination that was raised against Tinubu’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima.

Likewise, Obi insisted that the PEPC overlooked evidence that established that President Tinubu was previously indicted and fined the sum of $460, 000 in the USA over his involvement in a drug-related case.

“Imposition of a fine is not limited to a criminal conviction, as the word, in law, includes a civil forfeiture,” Obi further argued in his appeal.

Meanwhile, having now received the appeals, the Apex Court is expected to schedule a date for the commencement of the legal fireworks by all the parties concerned in the case.