The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the appeal by former Vice President and Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, seeking to nullify the February 25 presidential election of President Bola Tinubu.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports the Supreme Court also trashed the appeal filed by Mr Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 presidential, contesting the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
The Supreme Court delivered judgement, read by Justice Inyang Okoro, on seven (7) contentious issues in passing the final verdict on the appeals filed by Atiku and Obi against the ruling of the PEPC.
In the notice of appeal, Atiku had urged the apex court to dismiss and set aside the September 6, judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court, which affirmed the victory President Tinubu.
A seven-man panel of Justices led by Okoro, in determining the first issue for determination, held that failure to transmit election results electronically did not affect the outcome of the election and could not warrant the nullification of presidential election.
The apex court also stated that Atiku did not produce alternative results of the presidential election that showed he won majority number of votes cast to rebuff the one declared by INEC.
The court resolved all the 7 issues distilled for determination in favour of Tinubu, stating that the appeal lacked merit.
The apex court thrashed all the grounds of appeal of Atiku and PDP on qualification, non-compliance with the Electoral Act, the 25% votes in FCT, and electoral malpractices.
“On the whole, having resolved all the issues against the appellant, it is my view that there is no merit in the appeal and it is hereby dismissed.
“The judgment of the court below delivered on September 6th, 2023 affirming the election of the second respondent as the duly elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is hereby affirmed,” Justice Okoro said in dismissing Atiku’s appeal.
The apex court after delivering judgement of Atiku’s appeal went on to consider Obi’s appeal for about five minutes.
“In this appeal, we had during conference noticed that issues numbers one, two, three, five, six and seven in this appeal have been dealt with in Atiku’s appeal. It is the decision of this court that these issues shall abide with the outcome of the issues as resolved in Atiku’s appeal mutatis mutandis,” Justice Okoro said.
In dealing with the Labour Party’s presidential candidate on the issue of double nomination of Vice-President Kashim Shettima, the court held that the issue had been dealt with in its ruling on May 26.
The Supreme Court ruled that the appellant should not have brought the matter before the apex court in the first place.
“As for issue number four, which has to do with double nomination, which was not in Atiku’s appeal, it is the view of this court that this issue having been dealt with by this court, this court cannot allow this matter to be re-litigated in this very court.
“There must be an end to litigation. For us to sit down now and talk about when this man resigned or did not resigned, we are not going to do it again. This matter ought not to have come here.
“If you read the judgement of the lower court, they mentioned it that Supreme Court has settled this matter. That should have been the end.
“You now bring this issue of double nomination for us to sit on it and write another judgement, this is not how it should be. This appeal lacks merit and is hereby dismissed,” Justice Okoro ruled.