The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal: Deciding the Fate of Nigeria’s Presidents

Justice Haruna Tsammani, the chairman of the Presidential Election Petitions Court, has reaffirmed the commitment of the panel members to rely on the law in the determination of the petitions before the court. Continue Full Reading>>>...CONTINUE READING>>>

Justice Tsammani spoke on Wednes­day during hearing of the petition by the Allied People’s Movement (APM) against the alleged double nomination of Vice President Kashim Shettima.

Counsel to APM, A.G. Idiagbonya, had claimed that the Independent Na­tional Electoral Commission (INEC) refused to provide some documents the party requested.

But counsel to INEC, Kemi Pinheiro (SAN), informed the court that the subpoena by APM was served on the commission only on June 19, 2023, when the petition was filed on March 30. Continue Full Reading>>>

He informed the court that ev­erybody always finds an excuse to pick on INEC.

Responding, Tsammani said he read some media commentar­ies accusing the panel of siding with INEC against other parties.

“Some people are writing that we are siding with INEC. Anybody can write anything they like to write. But we will determine these petitions in ac­cordance with the law and our conscience,” he said.

APM closed its case at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in its petition chal­lenging the February 25 election of President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima after calling one witness.

On Monday, APM counsel, Id­iagbonya, had told the court that he needed just one day to open and close his case since he had only one witness.

Before then, the hearing of the party’s petition had stalled due to its inability to obtain a Supreme Court judgment of May 26.

The judgment had dismissed the PDP’s suit which sought to nullify the president’s election based on allegations of double nomination of Shettima.

The petitioner, however, on getting hold of the judgment told the court on Wednesday that there was nothing in the judgment to prevent it from go­ing ahead with the petition.

Respondents in the case, especially counsel to President Bola Tinubu, Wole Olanipekin (SAN), was, however, of the view that the judgment had settled the sole issue the petitioner was con­tending.

At the resumed hearing on Wednesday, counsel to the peti­tioner called Aisha Abubakar who was his only witness.

Ms. Abubakar told the court that she was a politician and the Assistant Welfare Officer of the APM (the petitioner).

Under cross examination, the witness told the court that she wasn’t privy to when INEC got the notice of substitution for Bor­no Central Senatorial District for the APC.

The witness told the court that she was aware of the Su­preme Court judgment delivered on May 26.

The All Progressives Con­gress (APC), through its coun­sel, Olanipekin (SAN), tendered a copy of the judgment in evi­dence.

Idiagbonya objected to the admissibility of the document in evidence but reserved his reason for objecting to the admissibility of the judgment until the final ad­dress stage.

Olanipekin made the witness read part of the judgment high­lighting the part where the apex court affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal that said both the president and vice presi­dent were qualified to contest the election.

She was also made to read the part where the Supreme Court described the case of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a friv­olous appeal.

She also admitted that Kabiru Masari did not contest the presi­dential election.

After the witness was dis­charged from the witness box, counsel to the petitioner told the court that he would be unable to close his case as he had said on Monday.

The lawyer said this was be­cause INEC had yet to give him some documents he requested from them.

“My lords, we could have closed our case today but some of the documents we asked for have not been given to us.

“We have issued a subpoena on INEC and we hope they will avail us of the remaining docu­ments.”

He, however, was reminded that he had said in open court that he needed just one day to open and close his case and that today was his “one day”.

After realising that some of the documents he had subpoe­naed had been brought to court by an INEC staff, Joan Arabs, a Deputy Director of Legal Draft­ing, he took the hint of the court and closed his case.

One of the documents was the original of the online form submitted by Shettima and an­other document was the original online form submitted by Lawan Shehu replacing Shettima as sen­atorial candidate in Borno.

Kemi Pinhero, counsel to INEC, the first respondent in the petition, also closed his case after tendering the letter that Shetti­ma wrote to his party which was sent to INEC withdrawing his candidature for senatorial election.

All the respondents, President Tinubu, Shettima, the APC and Kabiru Masari all closed their cases against the APM.

The Chairman of the Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani, or­dered the respondents to file their addresses within 10 days.

The judge also asked the pe­titioner to file his reply within seven days and the respondents to file their reply on points of law within five days.

The court adjourned pro­ceedings until July 14 for par­ties to adopt their final written addresses.

APM had in its petition marked, CA/PEPC/04/2023, contended that the withdraw­al of Kabiru Masari, who was initially nominated as the vice presidential candidate of the APC invalidated Tinubu’s can­didacy in view of Section 131(c) and 142 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

The party argued that there was a three-week gap between the period that Masari, who is listed as the 5th respondent in the petition, expressed his in­tention to withdraw, the actual withdrawal of his nomination, and the time Tinubu replaced him with Shettima.

It further argued that Tinu­bu’s candidature had elapsed as at the time he nominated Shetti­ma as Masari’s replacement.

The party prayed the court to declare that Shettima was not qualified to contest as the vice presidential candidate of the APC as at February 25 when the election was conducted by INEC.

This, according to the peti­tioner, was on the grounds of having violated the provisions of Section 35 of the Electoral Act, 2022.

The petitioner therefore asked the court for an order nul­lifying and voiding all the votes scored by Tinubu in the presi­dential election in view of his non-qualification as a candidate of the APC.

Meanwhile, hearing in the pe­tition of the PDP and Abubakar Atiku was adjourned until today because hearing in the petition of the APM had encroached into their time.

The court had adjourned hearing of the petition of the PDP until Wednesday at 10a.m but hearing of the petition of the APM which started at about 9:30a.m. went on until about 12:30p.m. on Wednesday.

Abubakar and the PDP were supposed to have closed their case on today but because their petitioner could not be heard on Wednesday, Justice Tsammani said that they could take until tomorrow to conclude their case.

Meanwhile, INEC on Wednes­day opened up to the Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja, on why it couldn’t provide some of the documents request­ed by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate in the February 25 general election, Peter Obi.

Lawrence Bayode, a Deputy Director in INEC, who stood in for Mahmood Yakubu, the Chairman, told the PEPC that the commission was not ready with all the documents sought by the petitioner.

Bayode told the five-man pan­el of PEPC led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, that out of the five documents requested by the pe­titioners, two were non-existent, while one was being processed.

The INEC official appeared at the PEPC to answer to a subpoe­na issued by the Labour Party and Peter Obi.

Similarly, Moronkeji Tairu, another Deputy Director in the commission, while tendering some other documents sought by LP and Obi, told the court that some of the documents re­quested did not exist while oth­ers needed to be gathered from across the 36 states. Continue Full Reading>>>

“The others are to be gotten across the states and for logistics reasons, it would take a while be­fore we can get them”, Tairu told the PEPC.

Recall that chairman of the PEPC had urged lawyers on both sides to iron out the matter between themselves following accusations and counter accu­sations between Obi and INEC on the matter.

Obi and his party had accused INEC of dodging being com­pelled to produce the documents through the subpoena.