Few months ago, when the Court of Appeals began hearing of the presidential election petition brought before it by the Labour Party, LP, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, I told a friend that the mistake LP/PDP would make is to not focus on the real issues of the election.
I opened that if they try to bring extraneous issues like Tinubu’s academic certificate, and the allegef US drug case, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, would make them look like fools by summarily dispatching those issues when APC/Tinubu start their defence.
I am not a lawyer, but commonsense should tell anyone that not staying on real issues of the election before the tribunal would be an exercise in futility.
What the LP/PDP ought to do is to prove their cases with incontrovertible evidences that showed that the conduct or the result of the election contravenes the Electoral Act 2022 in such a way that makes the election a totally flawed, and thereby rendering the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, invalid, bill and void.
Until the LP/PDP closed their petitions, I did not see anything they brought to court to change the course of the election result as declared by INEC.
As usual, and because our people deploy emotions more than reason on every matter, just like you see in the young girl who allegedly forged JAMB result, they would keep making noise over non issues. Emotions don’t win cases. Incontrovertible evidences that are above every REASONABLE DOUBT win cases.
By yesterday, when the All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu started their defence, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, unarguably the most successful senior lawyer in Nigeria when it comes to election petition cases, dropped only few certified documents to dismiss the two non-electoral matter LP/PDP brought before the court.
For their ground of Tinubu’s non-qualification, based on non academic status, Olanipekun submitted copies of Tinubu’s admission letter, degree certificate and a letter from the Chicago State University confirming that he was a student, and graduated from the university with honours and was actually the best student in his department.
Concerning the celebrated and hyped drug petition, Olanipekun also responded by dropping just TWO LETTERS. One written by the Nigerian Police to the US Embassy requesting for criminal record of the defendant, and the other, a reply from the United States Embassy, dated this year confirming that Tinubu never had any record of drug-related case or criminal conviction record in the USA.
The petitioner also alleged that Tinubu cannot enter the US. Wole Olanipekun also dropped other documents, including PBAT’s visa entries to the USA up to 2021, showing US immigration entry stamps at the US points of entry.
Now, the tribunal, even in the face of objection from the petitioners admitted those evidences as good enough for defence.
Now, to the real matter of the elections, LP/PDP spent all these few months bringing witnesses to prove that the iRev server had no glitches or technical problem as alleged by INEC, and that INEC only conspired with the APC by not transmitting the result live unto the iRev server in real time.
See, this is no case. The question is, does the not transmitting the result of the election to the iRev in real time change the result of the presidential elections as recorded in the form EC8, and as witnessed by all party agents in each polling units all over the country, which all the parties have a copy of the said form EC8? The answer is No!
Is transmitting of result live in real time a legal and constitutional requirement in the Electoral Act 2022 as amended? The answer is No! The law only empowered INEC to use whatever means administratively to make sure elections are held in a transparent manner and results are declared accordingly.
In other words, INEC is the only body legally backed by law, that can determine how it wants result of the election from the polling units, wards, local governments and states transmitted to the National Collation Centre.
It is INEC’s prerogative. While they planned to transmit, but unfortunately could not, it does not invalidate the result of the election in any other way, especially when all parties already have the results in their hands, ab-initio, through their polling agents.
Finally, is there anything major that could have invalidate the result of the election as announced by INEC? The answer is No!
Let’s keep following the case in court, but remember that I told you LP/PDP has no case, and they both knew it.
By: Ghanaianvoiceonline
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