Among the retinue of justices that handle legal issues in various courts across the nation, the five justices that presided over the judgment of the 2023 Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, PEPT stood out like a sore thumb for murdering justice on the altar of political exigency
By Miracle Egbo
Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN and the leader of the legal team that represented Labour Party, LP and its presidential candidate in the awful presidential election conducted in Nigeria on February 25, 2023 was not in his elements penultimate week. Disturbed legal luminary in his outburst told Nigerians that with the judgment as delivered by the justices of the presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, the electoral jurisprudence in the nation is on a death row. Livid Uzoukwu said that he had the express permission of his clients to appeal the judgment at the Supreme Court because according to him, the judgment handed down by the five justices is tantamount to travesty of justice in a country that is on the edge due largely to injustice which in most cases saw the judiciary tacitly supporting by either negligence or lack of upholding the rule of law.
Chris Uche, SAN, the leader of the legal team of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and its Presidential Candidate in the ill-fated 2023 presidential election, dismissed the judgment as miscarriage of justice that the Supreme Court should not allow to stand. He said that he had the permission of his clients in the matter to head to the Supreme Court to challenge what he called miscarriage of justice and save the country from judiciary rascality.
The infamous ruling which lasted for excruciating 12 hours and delivered by Justice Haruna Tsammani however raised curious concerns in the ruling. For instance, the ruling insisted that winning 25 per cent in Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja is not compulsory even when the 1999 constitution as amended states otherwise thereby jettisoning the constitutional requirement for winning a presidential election in the country. Justice Tsammani subtly questioned the integrity of the drafters of the constitution by dismissing the spirit with which the constitution was drafted to carry everybody along including the residents of FCT, Abuja. And by that ruling by the court, according to legal experts, had unconstitutionally made FCT a state, a decision that would attract legal fireworks in months to come as Abuja indigenes are already armed with the judgment to beg the apex court to declare FCT a state.
Investigation orchestrated by this medium revealed that both legal experts and laymen are taken aback that somebody who has been convicted in a court of competent jurisdiction for his involvement in narcotic and money laundering is now a civil case not criminal case. The ruling according to Samson Jide, a lawyer, is a bad precedent because “somebody like HUSSIPUPPI, a convicted scammer in the United States of America in future can aspire to be the president of the country, and he would be granted permission by the Court and the electoral umpire as they did to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to run for the post in 2023”.
The same ruling according to investigation has jettisoned the 2022 Electoral Act as amended which recognized the usage of BVAS for the purpose of any election in the country. The ruling said that it is at the discretion of the electoral umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to use BVAS or transmit results of any election electronically as required by the Electoral Act. The ruling equally established that the guidelines of the electoral body which is law is no more law thereby handing over the mandate of the people to the electoral umpire.
When the controversial publisher of Pointblank an online publication, Jackson Ude alleged that the judgment of PEPT was allegedly being written by Babatunde Faashola, SAN, and former governor of Lagos State and immediate past Minister of Works, tongues wagged. Fashola went a step further by reporting the case to the security authority, and information at the disposal of this medium revealed that the Department of State Service, DSS had swung into action by making some arrests in this regard. Investigation carried out by this medium revealed that there might be some element of truth in the allegation of Ude. For instance, the Certified True Copy of the infamous judgment bears the imprint of the legal team of President Tinubu.
Labour Party, LP through its National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Iloh said that the onus is on the All Progressives Congress, APC and President Tinubu’s legal team as well as PEPT to explain to bewildered Nigerians the appearance of the imprint of the team on the Certified True Copies of the PEPT judgment.
“Consequent upon the revelation that Certified True Copies, CTC of the recent judgment by the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT had an imprint, ‘Tinubu Presidential Legal Team, TPLT’ as its header, Nigerians are curious about such happenstance that has inevitably generated storm and controversy.
“The Labour party was very disturbed by the delay in releasing the judgment expeditiously, only to be confronted with this befuddlement. The public is equally at pains trying to comprehend what is happening. The onus of explaining and dousing the unfolding controversy rests on the PEPTand the TPLT, the imprint owners. Clearly, the header is not a watermark. We note that only some of the petitioners received the same version.
“In a highly contentious case with dire national interest and implication, confirming that the PEPT did not confer any advantage, rights or privilege to any party is imperative. This development must be cleared up quickly to avoid conjectures and the belief that something untoward happened. This cannot be the case of another glitch.
“The unsigned and undated statement issued purportedly by a senior counsel on behalf of the Tinubu legal team is misconceived and empty. The senior counsel claimed that the header is a water mark. It is not and can never be.” Iloh reasoned.
The dictionary meaning of water mark is faint imprint or a design made on some paper during production which can be seen when held up to the light. It helps in checking the genuineness of the paper. Iloh in the statement averred that the senior counsel who responded on behalf of the legal team of Tinubu was squarely responsible for the failure of the team to substantiate his claim of water mark narrative therefore should not pass the buck to the innocent petitioners.
“We of the Labour Party place it on record that the counsel who collected the judgment on behalf of our party and our candidate did so long after a representative of Tinubu legal team”, the statement revealed.
In the same vein, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, CBCN at the wake of its conference in Abuja said that due to the recent judgment of PEPT, the country is currently standing on the precipice of uncertainty as the case moves to the Supreme Court.
Addressing the 2023 opening ceremony of the Second Plenary Assembly of CBCN in Abuja recently, Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji expressed concern over the conduct of the elections which he said fell short of people’s legitimate expectation, moral and legal standards. Ugorji expressly highlighted the dismissive approach of PEPT towards the petitions filed by the aggrieved parties in the matter.
“After hearing their petitions, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT, delivered its ruling in a marathon judgment on September 6, 2023. The five justices of PEPT unanimously dismissed the petitions. According to them they lacked merit.
“Despite the billions of naira of tax payers money appropriated for the provision of the BVAS technology as a game-changer in our general elections, the justices in their ruling tried among other things, to suggest that it was wrong to expect INEC to keep its promise or obey the electoral regulation of transmitting election results electronically in real time from the polling units.
“While respecting the views of the justices, two of the petitioners rejected their verdict as lacking in justice and so have decided to head to the Supreme Court to seek justice. As the case moves to the next level, the fate of the country continues to hang in the balance and the future of democracy in our land stands on the edge of precipice.
“We pray and hope that the Supreme Court Justices will neither bend the law nor seek to satisfy the whims and caprices of any party. We also pray and hope for a day in our nation when all election results will be finally decided at the polling units and not at the court”.
In another development, the main opposition party in the country, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, through its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba insisted that the legal team of Tinubu lied by stating that it water marked the copies of the judgment with the inscription “Tinubu Presidential Legal Team TPLT’ before circulating the scanned soft copy to its lawyers.
According to PDP, the admission of the legal team of Tinubu that it scanned and watermarked its copy of the judgment with the inscription TPLT is self -indictive and lends credence to widespread public insinuation of pre-determined manipulation by APC.
“The rush by the TPLT in admitting that it imprinted on the CTC of the judgment smacks of a desperate attempt to dispel public scrutiny and ward off the possibility of more revelations regarding the issue. The PDP and indeed the majority of Nigerians are not satisfied with the claims by the Tinubu legal team.
“This is especially true as further examination and expert analysis showed that the documents are not scanned and that the TPLT inscription are not water mark but computer default header which usually originate from an author of a document. The PDP demands that the Tinubu legal team should explain how what obviously is a default header on its computer system should be accepted as a water mark.
“The Tinubu legal team should also disclose to Nigerians what specific time on Friday September 8, 2023 they received their CTC, what time specifically was the water mark imprinted on the document, the identity of the electronic device with which the water mark was made as well as the PDF used in the said water marking process for an independent analysis. The PDP demands that APC should come clean on the issue especially its notoriety for manipulations”, the party reasoned.
The PEPT judgment would for a long time impugn the integrity of the 1999 constitution as amended because most of the assertions of the judgment are in conflict with some of the sections of the constitution, and takes legal sapience quite some time to come in terms with the reason the blunder on the part of the five justices that delivered the contentious judgment.
