Someone called to ask me if there is any anxiety at the Villa over the presidential election petition judgement that will be delivered by the Court of Appeal tomorrow. I immediately responded that there is no whiff of anxiety. Why should there be?
Truth is PDP/Atiku and LP/Peter Obi filed the most groundless election petitions before any court in the history of Nigeria.
To start with, in the eyes of the law, Peter Obi was not a candidate in the last election. He was not a member of Labour Party as at April 25, 2022 when names of registered members were sent to INEC as stipulated by the Electoral Law. Obi became the presidential candidate of LP the day he joined on May 27, 2022.
As for former Vice President Atiku, he and PDP only wanted the election to be annulled because INEC didn’t upload results on IReV, as if that is the only way open to the commission to transmit the results. Atiku/ PDP’s argument is not supported by law.
High courts had already decided on the matter of IReV as not having any force of law and that it’s part of INEC guidelines. INEC is at liberty to declare results of elections through any method as long as it’s a transparent system and is backed by law.
You wonder whether these people will claim the results are no longer the results simply because they were not uploaded immediately, though they were uploaded nonetheless. Were their agents not at the polling stations? Didnt the agents of all the political parties sign copies of result sheets from polling units? Big question the court of Appeal will answer tomorrow.
