President Bola Tinubu has urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the appeal by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, for lacking in merit, substance and good faith.
Obi’s appeal it will be recalled was earlier dismissed at the election petition tribunal headed by Justice Haruna Tsammani.
The new appeal by Tinubu was contained in a response via his lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun, SAN.
Tinubu said, ”The entire petition was nothing but a jamboree of sorts, 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 the same.
if considered from every angle, is lacking in merit, substance, and good faith.
“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.”
Obi, according to Tinubu, failed to prove his allegations of non-compliance and
practices as required by law.
Tinubu added: “Instructively, however, the lower court, appreciating that it is not a court of final instance, proceeded to determine the petition on its merit, while itemising several monumental failures of the petitioners to provide any evidence in support of their much-touted case.”
