President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has asked the Supreme Court to throw away the appeal filed by the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar against the September 6, 2023 judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court.
This was as he described the appeal by Atiku against the February 25, 2023 election as a mere blockbuster with thrilling suspense and hide-and-seek.
These were part of the grounds canvassed for the dismissal of Atiku’s appeal, stressing that it was irritating, vague, unwarranted and has no known focus or destination.
Tinubu, who stated these in his response to Atiku’s appeal which was filed on his behalf by Wole Olanipekun, SAN, said that the case of Atiku has no legs to stand upon and has no wings fly to the direction being sought by the former Vice President.
The President claimed that he defeated Atiku and PDP in virtually all the states of the federation, thereby prompting the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare him winner after the lawful collations of the election results in the presence of agents of the appellant.
He also faulted the allegations of malpractices, non-compliance with electoral laws and non-qualifications raised against him by Atiku, stressing that the lower court did not find merits in any of the allegations, hence, they were dismissed.
Tinubu therefore challenged the competence of Atiku’s petition, arguing that what the former Vice President dressed as statements of facts were mere hearsays with no probate values.
He also asserted that while Atiku claimed to have won the majority of the lawful votes cast at the election, he never gave the figure he scored at the election, adding that what Atiku termed an expert report, was a mere worthless paper having been produced outside the period of the time stipulated by law thereby making it inadmissible by any court of law.
The President particularly drew the attention of the Supreme Court to the admission of Atiku’s witnesses that the election was free and fair except for the inability of INEC to transmit the results electorally as it earlier promised.
Tinubu further said that the non-transmission of election results electronically did not violate any law because the decision to use the electronic system was just a promise by the INEC.
However, Tinubu’s response was completely silent on the fresh evidence claimed to have been procured by Atiku from Chicago State University.
As at the time of this report, the Supreme Court was yet to fix a date for the hearing of the appeal marked SC/CS/935/2023.
