Eight months after, Supreme upheld President Tinubu’s election

By Deborah Odekola

Finally, the eight-month tussle over the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s victory as winner of the February 25 election by the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, has come to an end.

This is as the Supreme Court in its judgment on Thursday upheld INEC’s declaration while dismissing the petitions of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar.

The apex court, in its lead judgment that was prepared and read by Justice Inyang Okoro, held that there was no merit in the petition filed by Atiku to nullify the outcome of the election.

It held that he (Atiku) did not prove that the INEC, did not substantially comply with provisions of the Electoral Act, in the conduct of the election.

Adding that section 185(1) of the Evidence Act provided that an election should not be liable to be invalidated when alleged non-compliance did not substantially affect the outcome of an election.   

The Supreme Court said it had in past judgements, made it clear that there was a difference between election result collation system and the IReV portal.

“Where the IReV portal fails, it does not stop the collation which up till the last election was manually done,” the court held.

“Truth must be told, the non transmission of results to the IReV portal may also reduce the confidence of the voting population in the electoral process,” the Supreme Court warned.

“The Appellants did not present any evidence to warrant the interference of the findings of the lower court,” head of the apex court panel, Justice Okoro, added.

On the issue that President Tinubu was involved in a drug related case in the USA that led to the forfeiture of $460, 000, the Supreme Court held that Tinubu raised the issue when the Respondents had already filed their process.

It held that the action denied the Respondents the right to fair hearing.

“The ruling of the lower court is unassailable and this court will not interfere,” it held.

The court held that whereas Atiku alleged that the result that was declared by INEC was not accurate, he, however, failed to put forward their perceived rightful result.

“The figure before us shows that the 2nd Respondent won the highest number of votes and was duly declared winner.”

Consequently, the court, resolved all the issues that Atiku raised in his petition, against him.

“On the whole, having resolved all the issues against the Appellants, it is my view that there is no merit in this appeal and it is hereby dismissed.

“Judgement of the lower court delivered on September 6 is hereby affirmed. I shall make no order as to cost,” the Supreme Court held.