The Supreme Court, on Thursday, aligned with the Court of Appeal judgment affirming President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the valid winner of the presidential election that was held in the country on February 25, 2023.
Delivering judgment, the 7- Man Panel of Justices led by Justice Inyang Okoro held that the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transmit election results electronically does not warrant the nullification of the result of the presidential election as it did not affect the outcome of the election.
The apex court held that there was no merit in the petition filed by the former President and candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to nullify the outcome of the election.
The court held that Atiku did not prove that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, did not substantially comply with provisions of the Electoral Act, in the conduct of the election.
It held that section 185(1) of the Evidence Act provided that an election should not be liable to be invalidated when alleged non-compliance did not substantially affect the outcome of an election.
The court after it resolved all the issues that were raised by Atiku in his petition, against Tinubu said: “On the whole, having resolved all the issues against the Appellants, it is my view that there is no merit in this appeal and it is hereby dismissed.
“Judgement of the lower court delivered on September 6 is hereby affirmed. I shall make no order as to cost.”
The Apex court held that evidence contained in the record of the appeal showed that the Appellants abandoned the duty imposed on them by the law to not only prove the alleged noncompliance but to establish that failure of INEC to transmit results of the election through its IReV portal, influenced the outcome of the presidential poll.
The Supreme Court said it had in past judgments, made it clear that there was a difference between the election result collation system and the IReV portal.
“Where the IReV portal fails, it does not stop the collation which up till the last election was manually done,” the court held.
It stressed that INEC’s failure to electronically transmit results of the election, denied the electorates the opportunity to follow and cross-check results that were eventually uploaded.
“Truth must be told, the non-transmission of results to the IReV portal may also reduce the confidence of the voting population in the electoral process,” the Supreme Court warned.
It held that the unavailability of results on INEC’s IReV portal “for whatever reason, could not be the reason for an election to be nullified.
The apex court held that Atiku and PDP did not prove that they suffered any miscarriage of justice as a result of the dismissal of their petition by the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC.
It described as misconceived and misplaced, Atiku’s contention that Tinubu ought not to have been declared winner of the presidential election, having failed to secure 25% votes in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja.
The apex court affirmed the position of the PEPC that the FCT does not have a status that is more special than that of the 36 States of the federation.
It further upheld the striking out the evidence of some of the witnesses that testified for Atiku at the PEPC hearing, adding that most of the witnesses gave “inadmissible hearsay” evidence.
Justice Okoro stated that: “the Appellants did not present any evidence to warrant the interference of the findings of the lower court.”
On the issue that President Tinubu was involved in a drug-related case in the USA that led to the forfeiture of $460, 000, the Supreme Court held that Tinubu raised the issue when the Respondents had already filed their process.
It held that the action denied the Respondents the right to a fair hearing.
“The ruling of the lower court is unassailable and this court will not interfere,” it held.
Recall that INEC had on March 1, announced that Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, won the presidential contest, ahead of 17 other candidates that participated in the poll.
It declared that he garnered a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat his two major rivals, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who came second with a total of 6,984,520 votes, and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.
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