Time is Nigh for Tinubu to Step Up Governance

With last Thursday’s verdict of the Supreme Court affirming the election of Bola Tinubu as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the coast is now clear for the president to provide quality leadership, confront the numerous challenges facing the nation and deliver on campaign promises, writes Alex Enumah.

Fifty days after the Presidential Election Petition Court, declared that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was right in returning candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential poll, the apex court on Thursday, October 26, arrived at the same verdict.

In their judgments in two separate appeals, a seven-man panel of justices of the apex court held that the appellants failed to provide evidence that they and not Tinubu won the last presidential poll.

Having dismissed the two appeals filed by candidates of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party (LP), Mr Peter Obi, the apex court subsequently affirmed the September 6 judgment of the presidential tribunal affirming the declaration of Tinubu as President of Nigeria.

The verdict of the Supreme court delivered on October 26, 2023 has not only brought to an end all litigations concerning the presidential election, but, has secured the presidential job of Tinubu for the next four years.

And that job is to provide quality leadership, good governance, improved living conditions which nosedived with the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira against foreign currencies, at the very inception of Tinubu’s administration.

However, the major challenge confronting Nigeria’s peace, progress and development besides insecurity and banditry, is corruption.

Like the immediate past President, Muhammadu Buhari would say, “if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us”. Corruption like cancer has eaten deep into the heart and soul of Nigeria. There is no aspect of Nigeria’s life that does not smell of corruption.

While Atiku and Obi had alleged corrupt practices in the election that produced Tinubu as president on one hand and sought for the nullification of the poll, on the other hand, they had opposed Tinubu’s presidency on alleged huge baggages of corruption. Unfortunately, both the presidential tribunal and the Supreme Court failed to relief Tinubu of the corruption baggages especially of certificate forgery and perjury, when they dismissed the issue on grounds that the petitioners/ appellants did not plead them in their petitions.

Even the courts which affirmed Tinubu’s election have not been insulated from corruption allegations, not with the second most senior Justice of the Supreme Court, Musa Dattijo Muhammad, only few hours after his colleagues affirmed Tinubu’s election, lamented the rot in the judiciary.

He even accused the Chief Justice of Nigeria  of deliberately excluding some geopolitical zones from the bench of the apex court by not making appointments to fill vacant positions.

So, the starting point and indeed the point of impact would be tackling corruption headlong. Tinubu’s campaign slogan was “Renewed Hope”. If Nigerians must begin to have hope in the country and her leaders again, Tinubu must begin to act deliberately towards ridding his administration of all forms of corruption. Many have called on the president to come out clean in many of the allegations against him. Recall that while responding to the allegation of his forfeiture of the sum of $460,000 to the US government, Tinubu had argued that the event which was not a criminal forfeiture, happened more than ten years ago and as such cannot be a ground for his disqualification.

Also, while he had gone to a US court to stop the release of his academic records at the Chicago State University (CSU) to Atiku, he has also asked another US court to stop the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from releasing  information relating to his stay in the US to the public.

Recall that Atiku had brought Tinubu’s academic record from CSU to prove that the president forged the certificate he presented to INEC in aid of his qualification for the 2023 poll, but the apex had declined to accept them on the grounds that the fresh evidence was brought after his petition had lapsed adding that the failure of the petitioners to plead the issue was fatal to their case.

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu had on March 1, declared Tinubu as the winner of the keenly contested February 25, 2023 presidential poll. Tinubu’s declaration as president-elect came at the end of a four-day period of collation of results of the presidential poll from across the country.

According to Yakubu, Tinubu and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) had scored 8,794,726 lawful majority votes, while the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar polled 6,984,520 to come second while the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, came distant third with a total vote of 6,101,533.

Dissatisfied, Atiku and Obi, had approached the presidential election tribunal to challenge the alleged “hasty” declaration of Tinubu as winner, despite an avalanche of complaints surrounding the election, which Yakubu had earlier assured that INEC would look into.

They submitted that INEC’s failure to comply with its own rules and regulations has invalidated the commission’s return of Tinubu as president-elect.

According to them, Tinubu’s victory was as a result of alleged malpractices and other irregularities, upon which they are now seeking the nullification of his victory.

Besides, the petitioners maintained that for any of the candidates in the February 25 poll to be declared winner, he or she must score 25% of votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, adding that the failure of Tinubu to meet the said constitutional requirement invalidated his election.

Atiku’s petition was based on four major grounds amongst which are that: The election of the 2nd Respondent is invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.

The election of the 2nd Respondent is invalid by reason of corrupt practices.

The 2nd Respondent was not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast at the Election.

The 2nd Respondent was at the time of the Election not qualified to contest the Election.

They claimed that,” the non-compliance substantially affected the result of the Election, in that the 2nd Respondent ought not to have been declared or returned as the winner of the Election”.

However, after nearly six months of fierce legal battles, the tribunal said the witnesses called by the petitioners as well as evidence tendered was not sufficient to prove their allegations and subsequently dismissed the petitions.

The dismissal prompted the appeal to the Supreme Court, which was again dismissed for the second time for lacking in merit.

The panel in a unanimous decision held that the two appeals were lacking in merit as they did not provide any credible or convincing evidence to set aside the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court, which last month held that Tinubu was legally qualified to contest the February 25 presidential election and that the electoral umpire was right when it declared Tinubu president.

While stating that all issues raised for determination are resolved against the appellants, the apex court held that, “On the whole, there is no merit in this appeal and it is hereby dismissed.

“The judgment of the lower court delivered on 6 September declaring Tinubu president is hereby affirmed”.

Delivering judgment in the 1st appeal filed by Atiku and the PDP, Justice John Inyang Okoro, who read the lead judgment observed that the issues for determination by the court borders around alleged electoral fraud, President Tinubu’s non-qualification, and non-compliance of the conduct of the disputed election with the provisions of the Electoral Act.

On the issue of non-compliance, the apex court which agreed with the tribunal that the appellants did not present relevant evidence to prove this allegation pointed out that the appellants abandoned the duty placed on them to prove non-compliance and rely solely on INEC’s failure to transmit results real time.

According to Okoro “the unavailability of results on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Result Viewing (IReV) cannot be a ground to nullify” the February 25 presidential election which produced Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as President.

In addition the apex court held that failure to transmit results to IReV does not affect the results of the election, because the IREV portal is not a collation system.

“IREV is not a collation center. Whenever iREV fails, it doesn’t stop collation of results because collation never stopped”, the apex court held, adding that the results on the IReV are meant to be compared with the hardcopy results in an event of a dispute.

Besides, Okoro agreed with the respondents and the tribunal that INEC has the constitutional right to determine how it organise or collate results.

On the issue of striking out certain paragraphs of the replies of the appellants as well as expunging the statement and evidence of some petitioners’ witnesses, Okoro pointed out that allowing the statements and evidences of the witnesses would confer undue advantage on the appellants as the time for the respondents to file in their reply has passed.

Besides the apex court held that allowing the statements would amount to amending or brining additional evidence outside the 21 days permitted by law.

Similarly, the apex court held that the claim of votes suppression and diversion were not proved because the appellants failed to call witnesses from the polling units where such occurred adding that the statements of the Ward, Local Government, State and National agents were more of hearsay since they could only testify of what they saw in the polling units and not across the country where election held.

On the contentious FCT issue, the apex court disagreed with the appellants that a candidate must secure 25% of votes cast in the FCT before he or she can be declared winner. Okoro observed that going by that interpretation would place the FCT higher than other states of the federation.

In the whole, the apex court resolved all seven issues for determination in favour of the respondents which include; INEC, Tinubu and APC.

Earlier, the apex court declined to accept fresh evidence from Atiku to prove that Tinubu forged the certificate it submitted to INEC in aid of his qualification for the 2023 presidential election.

The court held that it lacked jurisdiction to do so on grounds that it was brought outside the 180 days provided by law.

Atiku had asked for leave to present fresh evidence obtained from the Chicago State University (CSU) in proof of his allegation that the certificate Tinubu submitted to INEC for qualification in the 2023 presidential poll was not issued by CSU.

The fresh evidence rejected are 32-page document containing Tinubu’s academic record from the Chicago State University where Tinubu claimed he graduated from in 1979. The 1979 certificate released to Atiku showed remarkable difference from the one Tinubu submitted to INEC.

Besides, a deponent who swore on oath to the genuineness of the documents released to Atiku, under cross examination admitted that the university did not issue the certificate Tinubu submitted to INEC.

However, Atiku had brought in the fresh evidence to the Supreme Court on October 6, one month after the tribunal delivered its judgment on September 6, 2023.

He had urged the apex court to accept the evidence in the interest of the nation and justice, pointing out that the issue of alleged forgery by a presidential candidate is a very weighty constitutional matter.

But, in their judgment, the apex court held that the application “cannot be granted” because it was coming after the mandatory time provided by law for the court to entertain and decide such application.

They cited Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (As Amended) which provides that a petitioner must file his case within 21 days while the tribunal must have to hear and determine within 180 days.

Pointing out that the law is sacrosanct, Justice Okoro noted that the fresh application which was brought on October 6, was brought after the case has expired on September 17, and cannot be accepted by the apex court, since the tribunal has hands off from the case.

He observed that Atiku had filed his petition on March 21, on the last day provided by the law, while the presidential election tribunal delivered its judgment on September 6, 2023, few days to the expiration of the 180 days.

In dismissing the application, the apex court held that it cannot do what the tribunal can no longer do by virtue of Section 285 of the Constitution.

Since the lower court has no jurisdiction to entertain the application, it follows that the Supreme Court cannot do anything with it, Okoro added, stressing that the time for doing certain things as prescribed by the law cannot be extended.

“The 180 days is immutable and cannot be extended. They did not ask for extension of time to amend their petition to bring in their deposition, even at that it can still not be accepted”, Okoro held.

Besides, the apex court noted that the appellants did not plead forgery in their case and did not even apply for amendment to reflect forgery before seeking to tender fresh evidence of forgery against Tinubu.

The Supreme court also dismissed Obi’s appeal barely few minutes after it dismissed Atiku’s for also lacking in merit.

According to the apex court, most of the issues raised by Obi in his appeal were similar to the ones which were dealt with in the appeal by Atiku.

Okoro, noted that the only issue not dealt with was that of double nomination which has already been dealt with some months ago.

“It is the view of this court that the issue having been dealt with by this court on May 26, 2023…..this court cannot allow the matter to be re-litigated; there must be an end to litigation. The appeal is devoid of any merit and it is accordingly dismissed. The judgment of the court below is hereby affirmed”, Okoro held.

Tinubu now has the opportunity to prove pundits wrong by ensuring that he leaves the country far better than he met it.