Owokoniran: PEPT judgement makes mockery of Nigeria’s electoral system

Rahman Owokoniran, acting national vice chairman, South-West of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), has said that the judgement by the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) was a mockery of the nation’s electoral system and democracy.

Owokoniran, a former commissioner of works in Lagos State and member of the state House of Assembly, stated this in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay on Wednesday.

The Court had upheld Bola Tinubu’s victory and struck out allegations of overvoting and offloading of fictitious results by Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the PDP, and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart Peter Obi.

But Owokoniran said the tribunal delivered judgement and not justice, noting that it would further derail democracy in the country and make Nigerians confident in the electoral process.

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“The tribunal delivered judgement and not justice; the judgement delivered and the manner in which it was delivered did not deal with the sustenance of the matter; rather, they chose to create a path for themselves to deliver the judgement that was kind only to the ruling party.

“What Nigerians were expecting was justice delivered; they did that without being mindful that it took a whole lot for the people to come out and vote because they had lost confidence in the conduct of INEC”.

He further disagreed with the Court ruling that INEC had the liberty over the conduct of elections in the country, noting that Nigerians were promised by INEC that election results would be transmitted electronically.

According to him,” What they said is not true; the chairman of INEC was all over the place assuring Nigerians that election results that did not come through BVAS would not be acceptable.

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“They purchased electronic equipment in order to get the trust of Nigerians that this election would be credible, and the IReV was to make sure that these election results were transmitted in real time for Nigerians to see”.

Speaking further, the PDP chieftain admitted that the party needed urgent rebranding to reposition itself for the task.

“I strongly agree with that position that the party needs to plan ahead; even the national chairman, in the briefing after the court judgement, said the party would play a formidable opposition role pending the time they win back the presidential seat.

“There is a need for a new PDP; there has been a lot of talk about the way the PDP ran its campaign the other time; some people said we ran it like we were still in government and that we were not strong in the media, etc”.