The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal has affirmed the election of Bola Tinubu as President of Nigeria.
Justice Haruna Tsammani, leader of the five-person panel, said, “This petition accordingly lacks merit. I affirm the return of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the duly elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The parties are to bear their cost.”
The tribunal, in a unanimous judgment delivered on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, dismissed the petition filed by the Labour Party’s Peter Obi and the Peoples Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar, who challenged Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 election.
The tribunal found that the infractions observed during the polls were not enough to invalidate the outcome. The judges said that the irregularities were not widespread or systematic enough to have affected the overall result of the election.
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The tribunal’s decision was a significant victory for Tinubu, who had faced the prospect of nullifying his election. The decision also has implications for the stability of Nigeria’s democracy.
Obi and Atiku filed the petition against Tinubu on March 8, 2023.
The two candidates alleged widespread irregularities in the election, including vote-buying, ballot box stuffing, and the disenfranchisement of voters.
The Presidential Election Petitions Court has declared that it lacks the powers to hear the petition of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) challenging the qualification.
APM’s petition challenging the double nomination of VP Shettima has been struck out too.
The tribunal said the petition by the Labour Pary was “clearly based on rhetoric” and that the petitioners failed to provide evidence to support their claims.
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The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal has struck out some aspects of the petitions presented by the People Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in the February polls, Atiku Abubakar.
The struck-out portions include those in which the PDP claimed that Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress was unqualified to contest the last presidential election.
The tribunal heard the petition over six months. During the hearing, the petitioners presented evidence of the alleged irregularities. However, the respondents, including Tinubu, presented evidence to show that the abnormalities did not affect the election outcome.
In its judgment, the tribunal said that the petitioners had failed to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt. The judges said the irregularities observed during the polls were insufficient to invalidate the outcome.
