For years, Nigerians have never been interested in the outcome of the Presidential election Petition Tribunal.
Peter Obi and the Obidients have changed the narrative as more Nigerians are becoming increasingly interested in the outcome.
Today, We’re bringing to you Summary of PO/LP’s response to INEC’S report.
@MissPearls
SUMMARY OF LP/OBI’s REPLY TO INEC’S FINAL WRITTEN ADDRESS.
LP started by saying that it is difficult to comprehend why INEC would abandon its primary responsibility of being an electoral umpire and proudly put on the toga of a candidate in the election it conducted.
They further stated that INEC didn’t release relevant documents to LP despite court order They continued by raising three issues for determination: —The first was as regards to whether BAT and Shett were qualified to contest —The second is on non-compliance of INEC to electoral guidelines —The third is on qualification vis-à-vis non-compliance. On the first issue, they defined money laundering and mentioned the fact that its nature and character clearly involves dishonesty on the part of the person who engaged in money laundering as in this case, BAT.
LP argued that APC in their final address were wrong to say that a conviction must exist before a person will be disqualified from contesting for the office of the president. They also argued that the US district judgment they tendered was in full compliance with the law. They further argued that by the express meaning and intendment of Section 137(1)(d) of the Nigerian constitution, a person who even though not convicted, have forfeited property on account of criminal conduct, should not aspire to or be allowed to occupy the exalted office of the President of Nigeria.
On disqualification of Shett, they relied on Section 142 of the constitution which provides that a person shall not be validly nominated unless he nominates another candidate as his associate. They also relied on section 34 of the Electoral Act which is on double nomination and argued that Shett’s nomination as a senator was never withdrawn by law. They argued relying on PDP v.Degi-Eremienyo, that for the reason given, both candidates should be disqualified, reason being that their joint ticket is vitiated by the disqualification of Shett —On the second issue, they argued that through the documentary evidence before the court and the unchallenged expert and technical evidence of LP’s witnesses, LP has proved that the non-compliance by INEC with the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act and the subsidiary legislations substantially affected the outcome of the questioned presidential election held on 25th of February, 2023.
Furthermore, LP argued that the Election Manual and Regulation is a subsidiary legislation which has the force of law. They have their origin from the Constitution and the Electoral Act. They argued this relying on Falake v. INEC; Stating that INEC should have complied with its Manual as regards transmission. As regards the Federal High Court judgement relied on by INEC, LP argued that the decision in Oyetola v. INEC which is a supreme court decision overrides that.
In the said case, the court held that while there is no part in the Electoral Act and INEC guidelines that require that election result of a polling unit should during the poll be transmitted on the spot to the INEC national election register data base, the regulations provides that the BVAS be used to scan the complete result in form EC8A and transmit or upload the scanned copy of the polling unit result to the collation system and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV). In addressing the testimony of witnesses, LP argued that INEC in an attempt to discredit the evidence of witness PW7 described her as “a person of interest in the outcome of the proceedings”.
However, she tendered documents which are publicly accessible and they also mentioned that INEC did not deny hosting its servers. They further argued that INEC’s witness in paragraph 27 and 28 of his witness statement on oath misleadingly and incorrectly claimed that all polling units results at the close of polls were immediately or timeously uploaded.
And still went ahead to state that the downtime encountered on the application lasted 4 hours 50 minutes until it was resolved and the first presidential result was successfully uploaded at 8:55pm on the 25th of February 2023. They further argued that believing that the blurred certified copies which INEC’s sole witness claimed to be the copies of the original, is like believing that you can harvest apples from palm trees or apples from pawpaw trees. They further argued that the unchallenged expert evidence of the LP/Obi’s witnesses, including the documentary evidence before the court, have established that the non-compliance of INEC in the circumstance of the instant petition, were not only substantial but grievously affected the outcome of the presidential election. Still on the evidence of INEC sole witness, they mentioned that in a futile attempt to justify the technological glitch, INEC’s witness RW1, tendered an alleged AWS CloudTrail logs showing the touted technological glitches, but on cross examination his evidence showed that the evidence he tendered didn’t meet the criteria a cloud trail should have.
A cloud tail should ordinarily have an event time, event source, source IP address etc. but the one tendered by the INEC’s witness did not have most of the criteria. On substantial non-compliance, the petitioners mentioned that they tendered 18,088 polling unit results downloaded from iREV portal and they were admitted. Some were blurred and some showed pictures of unknown persons, yet INEC certified them. LP mentioned that the INEC officials, with respect, must have a bizarre sense of humour to have done that.
They mentioned that ordinarily the results on the iREV should be exactly the same with the hardcopy and not blurred. They mentioned that the non-compliance affected 14 States and 168 Local Governments areas as evidenced by the exhibits tendered. —On issue 3 as regards the return of BAT and Shett, they based their argument on the fact that BAT did not obtain up to 25% in the FCT. LP argued that a holistic reading of Section 299 of the Constitution seems to suggest that the FCT will be considered as a state for the purpose of enjoying the executive, legislative and judicial powers vested in a state.
Hence the FCT is executively administered by the President, the National Assembly legislates the local laws of the FCT and the FCT High court is the court with territorial jurisdiction in the FCT. They further submitted that FCT will be regarded as a state to that extent alone and no more. They argued that the constitution gives the interpretation that a winning candidate must have 25% of total votes cast in two third of the states in the federation and the FCT; Meaning that a winning candidate must obtain 25% in 24 States and also 25% in the FCT.
They further stated that part II of the second schedule lists the States of the federation and the FCT is not included as a state. —Conclusively, they respectfully urged the court to grant all their reliefs —Courtesy