As the harvest of uncertainties approaches,Tinubu asks SC to treat Obi’s Objections as a fishing expedition

President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima have characterized the Peter Obi and Labour Party (LP) petition contesting the results of the recent presidential election as a spectacle primarily aimed at media spectacle.

Consequently, they are urging the Supreme Court to reject the Obi/LP appeal, much like the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) dismissed their own petition.

“In short, the entire petition was nothing but a jamboree of sort, which was prosecuted more in the media than in the courtroom and the lower court, being a court of law and not of sentiments, dutifully threw away their petition after a painstaking consideration of same,” Tinubu and Shettima said in the joint respondents’ brief filed by their team of lawyers led by Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN).

They deemed a comparable appeal lodged by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), contesting Shettima’s candidacy in the February 25 election, as a futile drain on the court’s resources.

The APM contended in their petition before the PEPC that Shettima breached the provisions of the Electoral Act, asserting he held dual nominations – as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Borno Central Senatorial District and as a vice-presidential candidate.

The APM contended in their petition before the PEPC that Shettima breached the provisions of the Electoral Act, asserting he held dual nominations – as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Borno Central Senatorial District and as a vice-presidential candidate.

The respondents said that the Obi/LP appeal “if considered from every angle, is lacking in merit, substance and good faith.”

They said:”Be it noted that unlike previous election petitions over which this honourable court has presided (in time past) and made far reaching pronouncements on diverse issues, including but not limited to ballot box snatching, vote buying, voters’ intimidation, interference by the military, thuggery, ballot stuffing, violence, disenfranchisement, non-recording of votes in form EC8A, which is the building block or the base of the pyramid, and such other electoral vices, this appeal arising from a dismissed petition, the main grouse of which is that, while the presidential election was peacefully conducted all over the country, and results of elections carefully and accurately recorded in the various form EC8As, some unidentified and unspecified results, even in the appellants’ brief were not uploaded electronically to the IREV portal.

“The other very remote contention is that the 2nd respondent did not score 25 per cent of the votes recorded at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT

“With much respect to the appellants, the petition is more of a fishing expedition; much more of evocation of thunder without dews.

“We submit that the lower court (PEPC) rightly held that the appellants (Obi and LP), as petitioners before it, failed to prove their allegations of non-compliance and corrupt practices as required by law.”

Tinubu and Shettima, identified as the 2nd and 3rd respondents in the appeal, contended that the PEPC was justified in striking out specific paragraphs of the petition and the petitioners’ responses to the respondents’ replies. This was because the petitioners had attempted to amend their case, contravening the provisions of Section 16(1)(a) of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act 2022.

They asserted that the PEPC made the correct decision in removing the written statements of 10 out of the 13 witnesses presented by the petitioners and erasing their testimony from the court’s records, as these statements were not submitted alongside the initial petition as required.

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Regarding the appellants’ assertion of Shettima’s dual nomination, both respondents urged the court to uphold its previous judgment on this matter in the case labeled SC/CV/502/2023 – Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) v. INEC & 3 others, handed down on May 26, 2023.

Their words:”In a failed attempt at distinguishing the said decision of this honourable court (in the PDP v. INEC & 3 others case), the appellants have argued that the judgment emanated from a pre-election matter and that apart from the findings on locus standi, the other points on the substance were made in the supporting judgment.