Talk is cheap. A few weeks ago after his fishing expedition to the United States (US), Atiku Abubakar, the standard-bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 25 presidential poll, made a public promise. It was at what he called a world press conference to present his lawyers’ finding after the voyage of discovery. He was so sure that he had a bomb of evidence in his hands, which would easily win him his appeal then pending at the Supreme Court.
Without batting an eyelid, he promised to abide by the apex court’s decision no matter how it went.. The court threw out his appeal against the September 6 verdict of the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC), which affirmed President Bola Tinubu as duly elected. Atiku was never going to fulfil his promise and that became clear yesterday when he addressed another briefing in Abuja on the apex court’s October 26 verdict. He had nothing for the highest court in the land but harsh words.
The court, he claimed, misdirected itself by dismissing his appeal. The court, he claimed, endorsed fraud, identity theft, impersonation, certificate fabrication and perjury at the expense of justice. Atiku spoke like a typical politician, imputing motives to the seven-man panel of Justices’ action. “If the Supreme Court implies by its judgment that crime is good and should be rewarded, then Nigeria has lost and the country is doomed irrespective of who occupies the presidential seat.
“If the Supreme Court decides that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) can tell the public one thing and then do something else in order to reach a corruptly predetermined outcome, then there is really no hope for the country’s democracy and electoral politics”, Atiku said. Did the apex court misapply the law in determining his appeal? Did Atiku’s lawyers make a strong case for him? The court is no respecter of persons or institutions; it is only interested in doing justice to all that appear before it. This is why the scale of justice is blind.
The court did not just throw away Atiku’s appeal as he insinuated yesterday. He lost because his appeal did not stand on strong grounds. There was nothing else their lordships could have done but dismiss the appeal on all the seven issues distilled for determination. The judgment rested on the profound work done by PEPC, which five-man panel of Justices first dismissed Atiku’s petition for lacking in merit. The Supreme Court also found the appeal unmeritorious. It is no mean feat for the President to have won unanimously at the PEPC and Supreme Court. The victory speaks volume about the quality of his legal representation.
In affirming his election, the PEPC held that Atiku did not provide any evidence to show that Tinubu was not qualified to contest. Elucidating on this point on appeal, the Supreme Court held that the appellant could not file fresh evidence at this stage to buttress his claim of non-qualification of the President since the 180 days for the prosecution of the case had lapsed. Atiku had come back from US with a deposition by Chicago State University (CSU) Registrar Caleb Westberg purporting that the certificate Tinubu submitted to INEC did not emanate from the school, where he graduated from in 1979. But the CSU maintained that Tinubu was his product, who was issued a diploma after graduating with honours.
“The 180 days having expired, the lower court therefore, no longer has the jurisdiction to allow the deposition sought to be introduced into the trial of this petition. This is the law, which at this stage, is elementary. Consequently, since the lower court no longer has the jurisdiction to entertain any such application, it follows that this Supreme Court also has no jurisdiction to allow the deposition to be used in this appeal. Let me state it clear that the 21 days provided for the filing of election petitions, having long expired, even if the applicants had applied for an extension of time to amend their petition in order to bring in the deposition, it would not have been granted based on the provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act.
“More so, there are no paragraphs in the petition to accommodate the case of forgery… one wonders what the appellants intended to do with the deposition since appeals are heard on the issues distilled for determination by the parties in court”, the court said. Atiku’s lamentations in the wake of the verdict cut no ice. His lawyers did not help his case in any way. Their claim that the election was vitiated because the results were not uploaded in real-time as promised by INEC was dismissed outright. The court said: “the non-transmission of results on the INEC portal, IReV, cannot be a ground for nullifying the election. The failure to transmit results to IReV did not affect results of the election. IReV is a storage and not a collation mechanism”.
Atiku and his lawyers undid themselves. Rather than admit their fault, they are blaming their lordships for their tardiness. Were they expecting the court to conduct their case for them? The court answered the poser thus: “It is clear that the appellants having not put forward their perceived rightful scores to rebut the results put forward by INEC, the law presumes its (INEC’s) version as correct. It will not matter whether the appellant can prove having won most states or if the first respondent admits that much. The figures before us show that the second respondent (President Tinubu) won the highest number of votes and was accordingly returned elected.
“From where, therefore, do we manufacture evidence to support the appellants’ claim that they scored the majority of lawful votes cast at the election or that there was non-compliance with the Electoral Act which affected the validity of the election? The case is done and dusted. But Atiku is still pining, contrary to his promise to let things be after the verdict. To him, there can be no stronger evidence of the ‘injustice’ done him than the claim of former Supreme Court Justice Musa Dattijo, who retired on Friday, of corruption in the judiciary. Atiku is just looking for any straw to hold on to.
