Blog

How The Presidential Election Tribunal May Rule:tentative Analysis by garfield1: 3:02pm

Notwithstanding the headline,this is surely how the court will rule.this is based on what the petitioners tendered in court.ill write the final analysis once the defence close their case.just as the court combined or consolidated atiku and obi petitions,I’ll attempt to do so.the petition is hinged on five grounds namely;

1) that obi and atiku won the elections and that their votes were suppressed.

2) that there was massive violation of inec guidelines necessitating in irregularities which calls for outright cancellations and a rerun.

3) that tinubu should be disqualified based on a conviction or punishment by u.s court

4) that shettima is guilty of double nomination

5) that 25% requirement in FCT is mandatory

6) that tinubu is not qualified by being a citizen of guinea and he is also guilty of perjury and inconsistencies in his educational qualifications

Ground one: Peter obi has not proven that he won the election and has not brought any proof to that effect.all his evidences points to the fact that tinubu won and that there was irregularities.even the mathematician prof ofoedu’s analysis showed the only difference in the overall results was in benue,rivers and 18,000 units that were blurred.no evidence points to peter winning.it is safe to say that obi has abandoned this prayer and wants fresh polls.

For atiku,most of his evidences points to irregularities.a watery report akin to the 2019 server debacle focusing on 26 states tendered by Sam oduntan showed he won but did not give details as to how and was based only on irev data.atiku is focusing on disqualifying tinubu and declaring himself winner or a rerun.

Ground 2:it is settled law that one will not only prove irregularities but do so substantially and show how it affected the overall results.lp lawyers claim inec promised electronic transmission but has failed to prove that inec failed to transmit electronically.the only called one witness to that effect who claimed that elections was free abd fair.atiku called five adhoc staffs who also testified to that effect.this unfortunately only affects the polling units they worked as evidence in election cases are restricted to each units.inec can easily call 10 staffs who will testify that results were sucessfully transmitted.in any case,the electoral act plus a fhc judgment gives inec the leeway to transmit anyhow.inotger words,both manual and electronic transmission are allowed.those witnesses that said they couldn’t transmit didn’t blame inec but the bvas and eventually sent the results to the collation units.the purpose of electronic transmission by virtue of section 60-65 of the EA2022 is to aid collation.no collation officer was called to testify.again,the law says the collation officer will compare the hardcopy with the transmitted results.the transmitted result that was uploaded is still on the bvas in image form so the collation staff can easily look at the bvas image and form ec8a.

Lp also called an amazon staff to show that there was no glitch.apart from the fact that she is partisan and on her own frolic without AWS permit,she confirmed that they could be localized glitch within inec.even if there was a glitch,it does not prove anything.the adeleke vs oyetola supra case placed reliance on physical evidence and tagged online evidences as thirdhand and unreliable.

The only somewhat concrete evidence of irregularities obi provided was from 18000 units of blurred results which was based only on irev which are secondary results.lp lawyers should have verified with primary hardcopies.if they could he a victory,it will be here as 9 mil voters are domiciled here and 2.5 mil voters came out during the last polls.in another rerun,fewer will come out.outside this,no substantial infraction has been proven.notjing compelling has been tendered.see okereke vs umahi 2015 supra.obi petition is full of mere allegations and averments and these are not evidence.see uzodinma vs pdp supra 2020.most of the evidences tendered were not pleaded.see the above case laws…

To further destroy obi’s case,the apex court has severally stated that guidelines cannot be a ground for election petition.see wike vs dakuku, okereke vs supra,pdp vs yari…

Ground four: no arguments has been canvassed on the fct matter so it can be seemed abandoned.but if not,a community reading of section 28,section 42 and 299 of the constitution has placed fct as a state.the body language,orbiter dictum,innuendoes of the court has shown where they will stand.again,the principle of legal ambiguity presupposes that where an ambiguity in law exists,the jurists will choose the most sensible, meaningful option for the lawmakers are not confusuonists or intent to create chaos.

In reality,fct is less than a state and cannot all of a sudden be elevated above a state without bringing equality first.moreover,other similar democracies do not practice such absurd voting system…

Ground three: section 182 d and e clearly says within a period of 10 years,he has been imprisoned or convicted by any court in nigeria.tinubu forfeiture wasn’t a conviction and even if,10 years has elapsed and the judgment wasn’t registered in Nigeria

Ground four; the shettima issue has been buried by the supreme court.they clearly stated that it was a pre election matter and internal to a party and that it can only extend beyond if he was nominated by 2 parties.sectiin 84 of the electoral act clearly makes nomination a pre election matter and only aspirants have locus standi.double nomination is not a constitutional matter and only constitutional matters pertaining to qualifications can be raised at a tribunal.again,the apex court found out that shettima was never guilty of double nomination and lp has no new evidence necessitating a review.

6) concerning perjury,the inec form has two questions on nationality.whether one has ever changed nationality? This is a no for tinubu.secondly,whether tinubu has ever voluntarily acquired citizenship elsewhere.this is a no because he never sought for guinean citizenship,he was only conferred and given a diplomatic passport to that effect.

On the so-called evidences supplies by atiku witness,the witness a lawyer rubbished most of them.the Female gender was recorded in his transcript and he never submitted transcript to inec as it’s not a constitutional requirement.adekunle has been in his name and the apex court has severally ruled on name variations.the age differences is of no effect as the apex court noted that as far as a candidate is up to 40 years,he is good to go.see AGI vs ayade supra..