Chief Robert Clark, one of Nigeria’s longest Senior Advocate of Nigeria – SAN, has said that the challengers of President Tinubu’s election had confronted the President’s victory at the polls on points of facts, and not on points of law. This, the 85 years old Chief Clark said during his appearance on Channels Tv’s Politics Today, on Sunday.
According to Chief Clark, the law on the question of 25% in FCT is clear and the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the FCT is not a state but in certain matters, the FCT should be treated as a state. Therefore, the question of mandatory 25% of votes in FCT, Chief Clark said, is one of such cases where FCT should be regarded as a state. The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal had ruled on Wednesday that 25% in FCT is “irrelevant” as FCT voters are not higher than other Nigerian voters.
For the other contentious issue of failure by INEC to use the IREV, Chief Clark said that the law, specifically the 2022 Electoral Act, did not mandate INEC to use the IREV. Instead, the use of IREV was purely a discretionary matter which INEC was at liberty to use or not to use. In Osun state, this was also the position of the Osun State Governorship Tribunal at the Supreme Court, in which Adeleke of PDP defeated Oyetola of APC now a serving Minister, at the court over the use of IREV.
Accordingly, Chief Robert Clark regretted that if petitioners are arguing a case on points of facts, then, it must support the argument with strong evidence. This he said was not the case with the petitioners challenging President Tinubu’s election. For instance, INEC said they were unable to use the IREV because of hitches beyond their control. Which excuse, he argued, is acceptable by law because the use of IREV is at the discretion of INEC, not mandatory. The antidote he said, was only if the petitioners came up with irrefutable evidence that INEC lied about the failure of their system. This, Chief Clark said, the petitioners failed to do.
Based on that, Chief Robert Clark said that attempts to disparage the judiciary are regrettable. Worst still according to the senior lawyer, most of the petitions at the Presidential Election Tribunal had been treated by the Supreme Court before. Therefore, in his projection, Chief Clark said that he does not see how the Supreme Court will take a different route from the position of the Presidential Election Tribunal.
He is a Technical Assistant to Governor Willie Obiano’s Special Adviser on Legislative Matters, whoonce was a Special Adviser to a former Deputy Speaker of Anambra State House of Assembly. Ebuka is a second class upper division graduate of Political Science from University of Calabar, Calabar Nigeria and holds a Masters Degree in Political Science with specialization in Government and Development Studies, from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Nigeria
