Below are excerpts of what the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential and vice presidential candidates, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Kashim Ibrahim Shettima, respectively, told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) respecting the blatantly manipulated election results.
In their response to the petition filed at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal by Mr. Peter Gregory Obi and his Labour Party (LP), Tinubu/Shettima claimed that scoring 25% in a minimum of 29 States, with 20 States Governors, 59 Seats in the Senate, 162 seats in the House of Representatives, it would have been most improbable for the petitioners to win the presidential election and also most improbable for the respondents to lose it.
Read what he told the Tribunal below:
May we draw the attention of the court to the fact that this petition substantially challenges the results of the election in the States where the respondents did not win the presidential election, even as borne out by the petition itself. In paragraphs 72 and 73 of the petition, the petitioners challenge the election results in States like Lagos, Taraba, and Plateau, where they won, while also challenging States like Gombe, Katsina, Kaduna, Kano, Osun, Yobe, where the PDP and NNPP won.
May we further draw the attention of the court to the fact that these paragraphs are under ground 2 of the petition, alleging that “the election of the 2″ respondent was invalid by reason of corrupt practices and non-compliance with the provision of the Electoral Act, 2022.” We respectfully lay emphasis on the phrase “election of the 2″ respondent”, meaning that the petitioners are deliberately zeroing in on the election of the 2nd respondent, as against section 134(1)(b) of the EA, which provides as one of the grounds thus: “the election was invalid by reason of corrupt practices or non-compliance with the provisions of this Act.”
There is a world of difference between “the election of the 2nd respondent”, as pleaded in the petition and prayed for in the relief and “the election” as provided for in section 134(1)(b) of the EA. We submit that the EA envisages a situation where a petitioner will complain about results of the election in places where the overall winner did not win, hence, the provision of paragraph 49 of the First Schedule to the EA, which permits the petitioner to join two or more candidates as respondents.
May we also draw the attention of the court to the witness statement of PW22, which reproduces the entire petition, including the foregoing paragraphs. It is our submission that it is not the intention of the legislature, that the respondents should be made willy-nilly, to defend the outcome of elections in places where he did not win, including Imo State, where the petitioners themselves won by over 77%. In like manner, the respondents cannot be made to defend whatever might have gone wrong in the States where the petitioners won the election, including Bauchi, Katsina, Kebbi and Taraba States, where the PDP and the NNPP won.
The point being made is that it will be against the Fundamental right of the respondents, as well as the spirit, tenor and intention of the EA, to make the respondents defend whatever is assumed to be wrong with the election, in the States where they did not win. Neither the EA, nor the Constitution contemplates the doctrine of vicarious liability in this regard. Arising from the foregoing, is the fact that the petition is improperly constituted, and, as such, at the end of evidence/trial, it is clear that it does not vest jurisdiction in this Honourable Court to entertain it, and more particularly, to grant the reliefs sought.
The essence of all these is that in the absence of the PDP and its candidate, the NNPP and its candidate, the grounds of the petition, the paragraphs making allegations against the parties and any evidence extracted during trial become incompetent and inadmissible in the absence of those panics. Without prejudice to the foregoing, it is our submission that there is no admissible evidence before this Honourable Court that will make it void or set aside the election of the 2nd respondent.
May we submit straightaway that the petitioners have not produced any evidence before this Honourable Court to warrant voiding or setting aside of the respondent’s election. While the petitioners called 13 witnesses, it is our submission that substantially, the cumulative effect of the terse evidence produced by them is against the petitioners. We further draw the attention of the court to the fact that most of the witness came to rehash the evidence of others before them. In essence, the end result of their evidence is the alleged non-transmission of already collated and entered results on form EC8A, to IREV portal.
We adopt our arguments under issue 1, insofar as they relate to the evidence of witnesses and are appropriate for this issue. While we have already raised and argued preliminary objections to the petition itself, it is our further submission that every criminal allegation contained in the petition has not been proved, assuming without conceding that petitioners have not abandoned them. Starting from PW1 through to PW13, each of them admitted the correctness of the polling unit results. The law is trite that polling unit results constitute the foundation of an election.
A successful challenge to the accuracy of a polling unit result is a condition precedent to the challenge of transmission of such result, whether to the ward level, Local Government level, State level or national level, whether manually or electronically. Right from the old case of Nwobodo v. Onoh (1984) 15 NSCC 1 at 23, the Supreme Court has held that election issues end at the polling booths where results are recorded in FEDECO forms (now form EC8A), and that even if any issue arises, those forms and the results therein can be added. In the words of the Supreme Court: “Polling stations are the concrete foundation on which the pyramid of an election process is built.”
Both the law and statute on this position have not changed, whether with the introduction of BVAS or transmission to IREV. With much respect to the petitioners, one would have expected them to have a rethink on proceeding further with this petition after the deliver of the decision of the Supreme Court in Adegboyega Isiaka Oyetola & Anor. V. Independent National Electoral Commission & 2 Ors. (Unreported) Appeal No: SC/CV/508/2023, delivered on 9th May, 2023, now reported as (2023) LPELR-60392 (SC), a decision which covers the field and clinically considers all issues which the petitioners are now agitating before this Honourable Court, including their failure, not only to tender, but identify or attempt to examine through any of their ‘experts’, or witnesses any of the BVAS machines deployed by INEC in the course of the election.
In the same judgment, the Supreme Court stated that the use of the Voters’ Register has not been discarded under the new dispensation. In this connection, most of the witnesses called by the petitioners testified to the proper, seamless and effective use of the voters’ registers as well as the BVAS machines. In Ojukwu v. Onwudiwe (1984) 1 SCNLR 247 at 284, the Supreme Court held that: “Another principle deeply enshrined in our jurisprudence is that admissions made do not require to be proved for the simple reason, among others that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh and that no better proof is required than that which an adversary wholly and voluntarily owns up to.”
In this particular petition, nearly all the witnesses of the petitioners gave evidence which is against their interest, or which does not advance their case at all, but rather, diminishes it. Their evidence constitute(s) admission against interest. Besides, the petitioners have not given any evidence, nor demonstrated before this Honourable Court, first, that the non-transmission or uploading of primary results to IREV in real time, affected any of the results generated and recorded at any of the polling units and, second, how the alleged non-transmission electronically, has affected their scores, as against the final figure or results declared, giving details and specifics of what they ought to have scored as against what the respondents should have lost; or what the respondents have gained.
While we have raised objections to documents tendered by the petitioners, may we further submit that all the electronically generated evidence/exhibits tendered by the petitioners have been dumped on the court and that the position of the law remains that the court cannot countenance them. In Dickson v. Sylva (2017) 8 NWLR (Pt. 1567) 167 at 199, the Supreme Court held that: “one may ask if electronically generated evidence already an exhibit before the trial tribunal or court…was not to be demonstrated or played. What was the purport of admitting it in evidence? Was it simply to dump it on the lower tribunal, which is the roundabout effect and which will in effect, side tract the provision of paragraph 46 of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act, 2010?”
See the old case Duriminiya v. Commissioner of Police (1961) NRNLR 71 and Wada v. MEC (2022) 11 NWLR (Pt. 1841) 293 at 328, to the effect that none of the petitioners’ witnesses, including PW 12 had the capacity to demonstrate any of the documents tendered, as they were not the maker of the said documents. Lastly, the uncontroverted evidence before this Honourable Court is that the respondents won majority of the lawful votes cast at the election, scoring 25% in a minimum of 29 States, while his political party (APC) presently has 20 States Governors, 59 Seats in the Senate, 162 seats in the House of Representatives, controlling most of the Houses of Assembly in the States, etc.
By virtue of section 145(1X2) and (3) of the Evidence Act mandating the court to presume the existence of similar facts to similar circumstances, we urge this Honourable Court to hold that it would have been most improbable for the petitioners to win the presidential election and also most improbable for the respondents to lose it, drawing comparisons from the performances of all the political parties across board in the general elections. Read more.
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