A seven-member panel of the Supreme Court, has affirmed the election of Bola Tinubu as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The panel, led by Justice John Okoro, affirmed Tinubu’s emergence on Thursday while dismissing the appeals against the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPT) judgment in favour of Tinubu.
The landmark ruling was delivered after a series of legal battles and appeals by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party’s Peter Obi.
The seven Supreme Court justices were united in their decision to squash the appeals against Tinubu’s presidency, stating that they failed to plead the facts of their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
In its ruling on Thursday, Justice Okoro rejected the PDP’s motion for the court to admit fresh evidence to prove Tinubu’s alleged fake certificate, citing failure to meet the 180-day timeframe provided by the constitution to amend applications.
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The court stated that the appellants failed to convince the apex court on why it waited until after the lower court had delivered the judgement before bringing the said depositions to the court.
Also, according to the justice, the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload results on the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) portal cannot be a ground upon which an election is nullified.
The justice dismissed the arguments regarding the constitutional requirement that a presidential candidate must secure a minimum of 25 percent of votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), among other requirements, to be declared the winner.
Also, the claims on suppression of votes and multiple voting were discarded by the lead justice. The justice resolved all the seven issues brought against Tinubu’s tribunal victory against the appellants.
Justice Okoro said, “On the whole, it is my view that there is no merit in this appeal.”