Supreme Court approves live broadcast of verdict on Atiku, Obi’s appeals
By Matthew Atungwu
In a historic decision, the Supreme Court approved the broadcast of its ruling in the legal battle that followed the nation’s February 25 presidential election on Thursday.
Barely 15 minutes before the seven-member panel headed by Justice Inyang Okoro was supposed to begin delivering the verdict at 9 a.m., the Supreme Court approved live streaming of the proceedings.
Meanwhile, there is a heavy security presence within the Supreme Court which is located within the Three-Arm-Zone in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja.
Heavily armed security operatives are stationed at every entry point to the court, with all the major access routes blocked with security vehicles.
From the main gate, both officials of the court and security agents, with long lists, verified everyone entering the premises, with those whose names were not found on the accreditation list, turned back.
Likewise, everyone entering the court hall was mandated to pass through a security van for scanning.
Among those already in court for the judgement, are the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Abdullahi Ganduje, his counterparts from the Labour Party, LP, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Julius Abure and Umar Damagun, respectively, as well as President Tinubu’s son, Seyi.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had on March 1, announced that Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, won the presidential contest, ahead of 17 other candidates that participated in the poll.
Read Also: Only Supreme Court will end my fight with Tinubu, says Atiku
It declared that he garnered a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat his two major rivals, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who came second with a total of 6,984,520 votes, and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.
However, dissatisfied with the outcome of the poll, both Obi and Atiku, alongside their political parties, initiated legal actions to invalidate it.
The duo, in separate appeals they lodged through their respective team of lawyers, challenged the return of Tinubu as the valid winner of the presidential poll.
A major plank upon which the litigants rested their cases included the claim that President Tinubu was at the time the election held, not qualified to contest.
They maintained that the election was characterized by manifest corrupt practices and substantial non-compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and INEC’s Manual/Guidelines for the conduct of the election.
The appellants further queried Tinubu’s eligibility to occupy the presidential seat, insisting that he was previously indicted and fined the sum of $460,000.00 by the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, in Case No: 93C 4483, for an offense involving dishonesty and drug trafficking.
According to them, such indictment, constituted a ground for disqualification under section 137 (1) (d) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
Besides, the petitioners stressed that Tinubu did not satisfy the provision of section 134 (2) (b) of the Constitution, as he failed to secure 25% votes in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
They maintained that Tinubu did not secure the majority of valid votes that were cast during the election to be declared the winner.
Specifically, they prayed the apex court to allow their appeals and set aside the September 6 judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, which not only dismissed their petitions as lacking in merit but also affirmed President Tinubu’s victory.
Both Atiku and Obi are separately claiming that they won the election, even as they urged the court to either declare them as validly elected President or in the alternative, order a fresh or rerun poll.
After each party adopted their individual briefs of argument last Monday, a seven-member panel of the Supreme Court, chaired by Justice John Inyang Okoro, reserved a ruling on the appeals.
The following judges make up the panel of the supreme court that will decide the cases: Adamu Jauro, Abubakar Tijjani, Ibrahim Saulawa, Lawal Garba, Emmanuel Akomaye Agim, and Uwani Abba-Aji.
Before the substantive appeals were accepted for ruling, Atiku had asked the Supreme Court to consider new evidence he had obtained from Chicago State University (CSU) in the United States. He claimed this evidence would prove that President Tinubu had submitted a forged certificate to the INEC to support his eligibility to run in the election.