The legal battle over the 2023 presidential election has been won and lost given last Thursday’s verdict of the Supreme Court, which affirmed the election of President Bola Tinubu. However, there is no doubt that the judgement will continue to be talking points for a long time. Among the issues that will likely dominate political discourse in the days ahead is: What is the next political move for the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, respectively? The question is as a result of the failed bid by the duo to turn the political table against Tinubu, who was the standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the February 25 presidential election.
Tinubu was declared winner of the poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), having polled 8.7 million votes to defeat 17 other candidates, who took part in the election. His closest rivals, Atiku and Obi, polled 6.9 million and 6.1 million votes, respectively. Atiku, Obi and their respective political parties as well as the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), however rejected the results and approached the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), which is the court of first instance in presidential election matters, with prayers for it to nullify Tinubu’s victor as declared by INEC. But the tribunal, in a consolidated judgement, on September 6, unanimously affirmed Tinubu’s election.
In arriving at its decision, the five-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, dismissed the separate petitions filed by Atiku and PDP; Obi and LP as well as that of the APM. In its judgement on APM’s petition, the tribunal held that issues the party raised contained pre-election matters that could only be determined by the Federal High Court. On Obi’s petition, the tribunal held that the LP candidate did not by way of credible evidence, establish his allegation that the election was characterised by manifest corrupt practices. It also held that Obi failed to prove that Tinubu was found guilty of any offence involving any act of dishonesty, adding that evidence before the court showed that the forfeiture order against Tinubu was in a civil and not criminal matter. Delivering judgement in Atiku’s petition, the tribunal struck out several paragraphs of his petition relied upon to push Tinubu out of office.
Also, several exhibits including witness statements he tendered to establish his allegations of irregularities, malpractice against the February 25 presidential election were rejected and discountenanced by the Tribunal. The tribunal held that several parts of his petition have no legs upon, which they can stand on and survive, hence, not competent. Atiku was said to have failed to name places where ballot boxes were snatched, the ways and manners the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine were manipulated and names of polling booths, where alleged malpractices took place. As expected, Atiku and Obi, not only rejected the judgement of the tribunal but approached the Supreme Court, which is the final arbiter on the matter. This was not surprising as only the 2015 presidential election was not decided by the apex court as then President Goodluck Jonathan (PDP), who lost to Muhammadu Buhari of the APC opted not to challenge the poll’s outcome. But, again, the apex court dashed their hope as their respective appeals were dismissed.
The judgement by the seven-man of the Supreme Court, read by Justice Inyang Okoro, followed a pattern seen in previous presidential elections that have been challenged in court. None of the attempts to overturn results through the courts has been successful. The apex court held that the appellants did not prove that the INEC did not substantially comply with provisions of the Electoral Act in the conduct of the election. It also held that section 185(1) of the Evidence Act provided that an election should not be liable to be invalidated, when alleged noncompliance did not substantially affect the outcome of an election. While the judgement of the apex court has given Tinubu a clear mandate to govern Africa’s most populous nation till May 29, 2027, it is unclear what the future holds for Atiku and Obi, politically, given that four years is a long time in politics, particularly for anyone out of power.
Atiku Abubakar There is no doubt that Atiku, who was Nigeria’s vice-president between 1999 and 2007, has never pretended about his ambition to occupy the country’s number one position. He had after his retirement from the Customs Service in 1989 ventured into business and politics and contested the governorship in the then Gongola State (now Adamawa and Taraba states) in 1991, but was not successful. In 1983, Atiku made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency after placing third behind Chief Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe in the presidential primary election of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
He made a breakthrough in politics in 1998, when he was elected as governor of Adamawa State. He, however, selected by the PDP presidential candidate, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as running mate before his inauguration. Atiku and Obasanjo went on to win the presidential election in February 1999 but after his first term as vicepresident, some governors elected on the platform of the then ruling PDP came up with a plot to deny Obasanjo a second term. The plan was to hand Atiku the party’s presidential ticket in the 2003 general election but he opted for a joint a ticket with his principal. While they won the presidential the election, the cold war over the botched plot against Obasanjo, which ensued after their inauguration, degenerated to bitter political battle by 2006, when Atiku declared his ambition for the presidency. Obasanjo’s insistence that Atiku will not succeed him forced the then vice-president to leave the PDP for the Action Congress (AC), which handed him its presidential ticket.
However, another round of powerplay led to Atiku’s exclusion from the final list of 24 candidates for the 2007 presidential election released by INEC. The electoral commission cited Atiku’s indictment for corruption as reason for the omission, but he approached the court to challenge his exclusion. The matter got to the Supreme Court, which in a unanimous decision, ruled that the electoral body had no power to disqualify any candidate for an election. The judgement paved the way for Atiku to contest the poll, but he came a distant third. The election was won by the candidate of the PDP, late President Umaru Yar’Adua. Atiku rejected the result and called for its cancellation. Two years after election (2009), Atiku returned to the PDP. While his return was initially resisted by his state chapter of the PDP, he was granted a waiver by the party’s national leadership. That paved the way for him to contest the 2011 PDP presidential primary election. Though he was selected by the Northern Elders Political Leaders Forum (NPEF) led by a one-time Minister of Finance, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, as the region’s consensus candidate, he was floored by the then Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, who went ahead to win the election.
The 2011 defeat did not deter Atiku as he staged another come-back in 2014 ahead of the 2015 presidential election. He had before then made good his threat of dumping the PDP over what he described as failure of the party’s leadership to return it to the vision of its founding fathers with his defection to the then opposition APC. While many believed then that Atiku would be the candidate to beat at the APC presidential primary election given his financial strength and political structure, he lost the ticket to a former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari. The former vice-president came third with 954 votes, trailing former Kano State governor, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso (974 votes) and Buhari (4,430 votes). Atiku accepted the outcome and pledged to support the party’s choice in the election, and never reneged, though some party members later accused him of not showing much commitment during the campaigns. The former vice-president returned to his business after the poll, but a rumoured ambition sometime in 2017, pointed to the fact that Atiku has not foreclosed his presidential ambition.
It was alleged then that Atiku hosted political meetings at Burj AlArab, Dubai Dubai in United Arab Emirates, apparently to revive his political machinery ahead of the 2019 presidential election, but the former vice-president described the rumour as the handiwork of political mischief makers, who were out to draw a wedge between him and President Buhari. However, it was not long before the picture became clear that Atiku will take another shot at the presidency but there was an impediment to this quest – President Buhari’s second term bid. This barrier forced Atiku to resign from the APC on November 24, 2017. He hinged his decision on APC’s failure to deliver on its promises to Nigerians. While the former vice-president promised then to take time to ponder about his next political move, it did not take time before he announced his return to the PDP. That set the stage for him to join the 2019 presidential race and as expected, he defeated 11 other aspirants at the party’s national convention held on December 7, 2018. He polled 1,532 votes to beat his closest rival, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, who scored 693 votes, while the then President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, came third with 317 votes. Atiku’s emergence as the presidential candidate of the PDP saw him squaring against then President Buhari, who was the standard bearer of the APC but the former vicepresident lost the February 27, 2019, election by over a million votes. He challenged the outcome of the election but the Supreme Court dashed his hope of turning the table against Buhari. Atiku challenged the outcome of the election but the Supreme Court dashed his hope of upturning the table against Buhari the same way it has done against his bid to upturn Tinubu’s election.
The question against this backdrop is: Will the Wazirin Adamawa foreclose his presidential ambition? While Atiku is the only one to answer the question, analysts believe that the decision whether to throw in the towel or hang on is not one to be made in a hurry. The former vice-president is 76 (born on November 25, 1946) and will be 80 in 2027, when the next presidential election would be held. The question against this backdrop is: Will Atiku have the strength to run for the office of president at 80 in 2027? No doubt, politics, being a game of the possible in which nothing is foreclosed, the belief of most analysts is that the former vice-president is likely to another shot at the presidency, but that will depend on his ability to rebuild the PDP, which seems to have lost its steam. Peter Obi The 2023 election was Obi’s first attempt at the presidency although he was running mate to Atiku in 2019. The former governor of Anambra State was among the frontrunners for the PDP presidential ticket but he shocked many, when he announced his withdrawal from the contest and resignation from the party few days to the shadow poll. He later opted for Labour Party (LP) and emerged as its candidate.
This development turned the party to a movement thereby altering the political calculation for the 2023 presidential poll. For the first time since 1999, Nigerians witnessed a three-horse presidential contest. The race before the last polls, has always been between the two leading parties at any particular time. Although Obi was unable to win the election, the massive mobilization by his supporters, mostly youths, under the aegis of Obidients and others who wanted a break from the past, shook Nigeria’s political landscape. He won in 11 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. The states are Enugu, Lagos, Nasarawa, Delta, Imo, Cross River, Ebonyi, Anambra, Abia, Edo and Plateau. Obi’s influence also contributed to the appreciable number of legislative seats LP won across the country as well as the governorship position in Abia State.
To many, including some members of the ruling party, Obi is a candidate for the future, but the question is: Will he be able to sustain the steam before the next general election? Age is still on his side; he is 61 (born on July 19, 1961 and will be 65 by 2027. While actions and inactions of the LP candidate in the days ahead will determine his political future, there is no doubt that Obi’s brand of politics has always been characterised by doggedness and he is likely to quit politics for now. It would be recalled that he contested the Anambra State governorship election on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in 2003 but his opponent, Chris Ngige of the PDP, was declared winner by INEC. However, after nearly three years of litigation, Ngige’s victory was overturned by the Court of Appeal. Obi took office on March 17 2006 but after seven months in office (November 2, 2006), he was impeached by members of the Anambra State House of Assembly and replaced the next day by his deputy, Virginia Etiaba. Obi successfully challenged his impeachment and was re-instated as governor on February 9, 2007, by the Court of Appeal. He once again left office on May 29, 2007, following the general election in which Andy Uba of the PDP was declared winner of the Anambra governorship contest by INEC but immediately returned to the courts, this time contending that the four-year tenure he had won in the 2003 election only started to run, when he took office in March 2006. On June 14, 2007, the Supreme Court upheld Obi’s contention and returned him to office.
This brought Uba’s tenure to an abrupt end as the apex court ruled that his fouryear tenure should have remained undisturbed until March 2010. he was re-elected after his first term, a feat nobody achieved before then in the state. Obi has not made known his next line of action after the Supreme Court affirmed Tinubu’s election. However, it is likely that he will contest the 2027 presidential election despite his recent dismissal of reports in some sections of the media that he is looking forward to run again for the office of the president in the 2027 general election. Obi, who declared that his focus and that of the ‘Obidient’ Movement will not derail from the original mission of creating a new Nigeria, in a statement in July, said: “I have noticed with dismay, an emerging pattern, where fake media reports and news items are predicated on interviews and press remarks I never granted. “Two recent instances relating to my saying that I am looking forward to running for office in 2027 on a supposed Arise TV interview. This never took place and the other, about my reaction to prospective appointees into the current Federal Government. “Our emphasis has never been on political positions or personal aggrandisement but on putting the nation on the right footing and deepening our democracy by helping to elevate and empower the downtrodden in our society.”
