Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Shettima Kashim, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Respondents in the matter of the election to the office of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria held on the 25th day of February, 2023, have declared that the Petitioners, Mr Peter Gregory Obi and the Labour Party (LP), have abandoned their petition and currently have nothing to urge on the court, except ‘chasing’ and trailing their address.
Senators Tinubu and Shettima made the claim in their reply address to the Court of Appeal holden at Abuja, venue of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), with petition no: CA/PEPC/03/2023, tagged “abandonment of petition“.
The Respondents stated:
“Petitioners have abandoned their petition completely, as, rather than presenting their Final Written Address to the court in aid and ventilation of their case, what they have presented is titled: “Petitioners’ Final Written Address in Response to the 2nd and 3rd Respondents’ Final Address.”
“…the petitioners contend thus: “This is the Petitioner’s Reply Address in response to the submissions contained in the 2nd and 3rd Respondents’ Written Address dated and filed on 14th July, 2023…
“The clear meaning of the foregoing is that the petitioners are only replying to the respondents’ final address, rather than presenting their own case, as contemplated under paragraph 46(12) of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2022 (EA).
“In effect, the petitioners have nothing to urge on the court, except to be ‘chasing’ the respondents’ address or trailing behind the respondents’ address.”
Going further, Tinubu/Shettima told the Tribunal that the “petitioners have submitted no issue for determination”, arguing that “it is clear that the petitioners have not fommlated any issue for determination capable of being considered or countenanced by this Honourable Court; and the court can also not consider their address without issues for determination being presented by them.”
Arising from the foregoing, Tinubu/Shettima urged the Court, as respondents have done in their final address, to dismiss the petition, not only for the reasons and submissions contained in that address, but also for the clear manifestation and display of abandonment of the entire petition.
The APC flag-bearers also claimed that Peter Obi and the Labour Party admitted crucial and germane submissions contained in their address by offering no response to them.
They said: “In the respondents’ address, several fundamental and constitutional issues have been raised in respect of the petitioners’ case, showing that what the petitioners have presented before this Honourable Court is non-sequitur, and throughout the address of the petitioners, they offered no response to them.
“It is trite that when one party makes a submission on a vital issue of law, and the other party (adversary) fails or refuses to respond to same, that other party is deemed to have admitted to the submissions of his adversary.”
Tinubu/Shettima further submitted that amongst the several submissions of the respondents which have not been controverted by the petitioners in any manner howsoever. are:
i. That the petitioners have no locus standi to present a petition challenging the 2nd respondent on the purported ground that he did not score 25% of votes cast in the FCT, having been constitutionally barred and/or excluded from participating in any rerun election, in the unlikely event of the court making such an order, as section 134(3)(a) and (b) of the Constitution prohibits and excludes him from so-doing. In such a situation, he can only vote and cannot be voted for, as the duel or contest will now be between the 2nd respondent and the person who scored “the next majority of votes in the highest number of States (19 States)” and who “also came second by plurality of votes”, that is, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku. Borrowing the language of the Supreme Court in the celebrated case of Thomas v. -Olufosoye (1986) 1 NWLR (Pt. 18) 669, the 2nd petitioner is a meddlesome interloper, as he is presenting a case where he will derive no utilitarian value.
ii. That the evidence presented by the petitioners themselves, point to the fact that all the electioneering processes of accreditation, voting, sorting, counting, entry into the respective Form ECSAs and manual transfer to the collation centers went smoothly.
iii. That by the imperative of section 135 (1) of the Electoral Act, the mere fact that results were not transmitted through the REV cannot operate to ground an invalidation of an election.
iv. That the hardcopy of the Form EC8A is the building block for any collation of results.
v. That by paragraph 93 of the Regulations, electronic copy is only relevant, where the hardcopy of the form EC8A is not available at the collation center, and that even in the absence of the electronic copy, recourse should be made to either the copy given to the party agent or police officers.
vi. That the much flaunted and touted Exhibits PCJI and PCJ2 are not only unsigned, but Exhibit PCJ2 has no author; what appears thereunder is “Employment Resource Center” (as the author!). This is aside of the fact that both exhibits were made in anticipation of the proceedings, contrary to section 83(3) of the Evidence Act, 2011.
vii. That PW7 admitted under cross examination by the respondents’ counsel that the AWS server has, in recent past, suffered numerous outages, including the ones of 25th February, 2017, and the over 27 others, as at 2021; admitting the possibility of other outages as, according to her, “anything is possible”.
viii. That the purported report of PW4, only covered 2 States, Benue and Rivers.
ix. That none of the witnesses called by the petitioners offered any scintilla of evidence to avail the court of the total number of votes that should be due to the petitioners, as a result of the non-electronic transmission of votes to the IREV, and the number of votes that have been unduly credited to the 2″ respondent, for the same reason.
x. That Exhibit P5 was not accompanied by any certificate purposing to be given under the hand of a police officer in proof of a previous conviction, as required under section 248 of the Evidence Act.
xi. That Non-Conviction Based Forfeiture (NCBF) of the type referenced in Exhibit PS is typically the outcome of an in rem action and does not involve trial or conviction for an offence.
xii. That on the close of evidence, it has become glaring that none of the reliefs prayed for by the petitioners is grantable.
xiii. That on the uncontroverted evidence borne out front Exhibits RA20 and RA21, as well as the evidence of Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, it was clear that the votes of the 2nd respondent in Kano State was discounted by 10,929, and that this figure should be added to the recorded votes of 8,794,726, to make the total votes scored by the 2nd respondent to be 8,800,369.
xiv. Petitioners also avoided making any reference to, or joining any issue with the respondents on Exhibits RA8 and RA9, respectively, certified true copies of a letter dated 3rd February, written by the Inspector General of Police, “requesting confirmation of any criminal record of criminal conviction to date, against Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the United States of America” and that “this information, as stated, is required to clear Governor Tinubu to participate in the forthcoming Gubernatorial elections, in line with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of , Nigeria” (Exhibit RA8). To this letter, Michael H. Bonner, the Legal Attache to the US Embassy, replied on February 4, 2003, that “The results of the cheeks were negative for any criminal arrest records, wants, or warrants for Bola Ahmed Tinubu (DOB 29 March, 1952).”
The respondents also drew the attention of the court to Exhibit RA1, being a request of the Nigeria Police to the America Embassy was made in order to clear or bar Tinubu to participate in the then gubernatorial elections, in line with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
They urged the court to take judicial notice that the said Gubernatorial elections were conducted in 2003 and that 2nd respondent participated in the elections, which was 20 years ago.
“Ordinarily and naturally, this should have been the end of the contention and mudslinging against the 2nd respondent, more particularly so, when certified true copies of those two exhibits were tendered before this Honourable Court, and in the evidence of RW2, he conformed that by Exhibit RA9, it was/is clear that 2nd respondent did not/does not have any criminal record, including of traffic offence, in the USA,” they wrote.
The respondents also contended that till now, the Tinubu has enjoyed unfettered rights of ingress and egress, moving to and fro (from Nigeria to the USA), without any inhibition or query.
According to them, the Petitioners deliberately avoided this core evidence in their address and, rather, chose to embark on random name calling, leaving law for tantrums.
They concluded that there is no need to further join issues with the petitioners as they have conceded to the pertinent issues arising from and contiguous to the petition.
The respondents also raised other issues whhich they believed will be useful in their defense and asked the court to dismiss the petition by Peter Obi and his Labour Party.Read more.
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