• By Kamil Opeyemi

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has emerged victorious at the Supreme Court on Thursday as appeals filed by the candidate of People’s Democratic Party Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his Labour Party’s counterpart, Peter Obi were thrown out.

Justice Okoro who read the lead judgement dismissed all the five grounds of appeal upholding the decisions of the Appeal Tribunal which had earlier declared Tinubu winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential election.

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The Supreme Court has on Thursday dismissed the application by the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to present fresh evidence seeking to upturn the victory of President Bola Tinubu.

The court ruled that the petitioners have failed to present other figures that show they scored more votes than the winner declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

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The court said the figures of elections presented by the INEC were presumed to be correct adding that no other figure has been presented by the appellants to show that the winner of the election did not score the needed votes to be so declared.

Describing the appeals as lacking merit, the court said the appellant did not present any contrary figure that could be considered for his presumed victory at the polls.

The Apex court also dismissed the claim that the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission to upload the results of the February 25 presidential election was not a sufficient reason to nullify the victory of the declared winner.

The court said the failure of the INEC’s much touted technology, iREV, did not stop manual collation of results nationwide adding that iREV was not a collation device whose sudden technological hitch could affect collation of results.

Also, on the grounds that the winner of the election did not win 1/4 or 25% of the total votes cast at the Federal Capital Territory, the court ruled that the FCT does not enjoy such special status in determining the winner of presidential election.

The court held that if the constitution intended such criteria, the drafters of the constitution would have expressly stated so.

In conclusion, the court warned of future threats to judges in cases pending before the courts saying that the current case had witnessed an avalanche of press conferences and social media actions that are inimical to the administration of justice.

More Details later…