The Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing for Monday, October 23, in the appeal filed by Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) candidates in the previous presidential election, respectively.
It was learned that the appeal filed by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) will also be heard by the supreme court on Monday.
The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) dismissed the petitions of Atiku/PDP, Obi/LP, and the APM on September 6 for being unmeritorious, lacking merit, and because the petitioners had not provided sufficient evidence to support their claims. The petitioners are contesting this decision through their appeals.
They were challenging President Bola Tinubu’s victory in the presidential election on February 25 in the petitions.
Atiku and his party are appealing on 35 grounds, and among other things, they want the top court to overturn the PEPC’s decision regarding their petition.
In a 51-ground appeal that they also filed, Obi and his party are requesting comparable redress.
The APM is primarily pleading with the Supreme Court to nullify Tinubu’s victory on the grounds that Senator Kashim Shettima, his running mate, was not duly nominated in its 10-ground appeal.
The PDP, LP, the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), and its candidates filed petitions, but their claims were deemed unmeritorious, without merit, and unable to establish their cases beyond a reasonable doubt. This decision was reached unanimously.
Among other things, the PDP and Atiku are arguing in their appeal that the PEPC’s decision goes against the preponderance of the evidence.
According to their legal argument, the PEPC committed a legal error by declining to maintain the requirement for electronic results transmission for final results confirmation and verification, which was implemented by the Electoral Act 2022 to ensure transparency and integrity of results in line with the Act’s principles.
They contend that the introduction of technology in the conduct of elections—specifically, in the transmission and collation of results—by the Electoral Act of 2022 made certain aspects of the electoral process vulnerable to manipulation and compromise.
In ground two, the appellants contended that the PEPC erred in holding that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) was not intended to be used to electronically transmit or transfer the results of the polling unit directly to the collation system, despite the clear provisions of enabling statutes, including the constitution, the Electoral Act 2022, the Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of elections, and the Manual for Election Officials.
Additionally, they criticized the PEPC for maintaining that the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IRev) was not a method for collation.
The appellants criticized the PEPC for ruling that the Electoral Act of 2022 does not mandate the electronic transfer of election results straight from polling places to the INEC collation system.
They contend that the PEPC committed a legal error by neglecting to consider the appellants’ case in light of the mandatory confirmations and verifications that, in accordance with Section 64(4) of the Electoral Act, 2022, must be made prior to the release of the presidential election result.
The First Respondent (INEC) conducted the election based on very grave and gross misrepresentation, contrary to the principles of the Electoral Act 2022, based on the “doctrine of legitimate expectation,” according to evidence before the court. For this reason, the PEPC was faulted for failing to “nullify the presidential election held on February 25, 2023 on the ground of non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022.”
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