Breaking News: Supreme Court reserves judgment on Obi’s appeal against Tinubu: Regarding the appeal that Mr. Peter Obi, the candidate of the Labour Party, LP, filed to contest the results of the February 25 presidential election, the Supreme Court has postponed making a decision. Enoughinfo.com
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Following the adoption of each party’s argument brief, a seven-member panel of the highest court, presided over by Justice Inyang Okoro, approved the case for judgement.
Through attorneys led by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, Obi and the LP pleaded with the court to sustain the appeal and overturn the ruling of the Presidential Election case Court (PEPC), which had denied their case.
The All Progressives Congress (APC), President Bola Tinubu, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) pleaded with the court to reject the appeal for lack of merit through their respective attorneys.
The panel declared that it will notify each party of the judgement date.
The third-place finisher in the election, Obi, said in his 51 grounds of appeal that the PEPC panel had made a legal error and so arrived at the incorrect decision when it denied his plea.
He said the panel committed a serious injustice when it determined that he failed to identify the polling places at which anomalies transpired during the election, and that the panel incorrectly assessed the evidence he presented to it. How to make friends in your 20s
Breaking News: Supreme Court reserves judgment on Obi’s appeal against Tinubu
Obi and the LP also criticised the PEPC for rejecting their petition on the grounds that they failed to provide specific numbers for the votes or scores that they claimed were manipulated or manipulated to benefit President Tinubu and the APC.
They claimed that the PEPC panel, chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani, had committed legal errors when it excluded some paragraphs from the petition by citing paragraphs 4(1)(d)(2) and 54 of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act 2022.
Obi maintained that his witnesses’ evidence was improperly rejected as defective, even as he accused the lower court of violating his right to a fair trial. How to Get Rid of Dollar Weed (All you need to know)
He complained to the supreme court that the panel had unfairly disregarded his claim that INEC had submitted 18, 088 results with blurry images to its IReV platform.
Also, Obi claimed that the lower court disregarded his claim that the certified true copies of the documents, which INEC sent to his legal team, included 8, 123 blurry results with blank A4 pages, photographs, and images of unidentified people, claiming to be the CTC of polling place results for the presidential election.
“The learned justices of the court below erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of justice when they held and concluded that he failed to establish the allegation of corrupt practices and over-voting,” Obi added.
He said it was wrong for the lower court to rely on the legal principle of estoppel to dismiss his contention that INEC bypassed its regulations when it refused to electronically transmit the results of the election from polling units to the IReV.
“The petitioners addicted credible and substantial evidence, both oral and documentary, that proved substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 by the Respondents in the conduct of the election.
“The court below overlooked that the Respondents failed to disprove the evidence of substantial non-compliance adduced by the petitioners,” the Appellants stated, adding that the panel wrongfully dismissed the issue of double nomination that was raised against Tinubu’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima.
Likewise, Obi insisted that the PEPC overlooked evidence that established that President Tinubu was previously indicted and fined $460,000 in the USA over his involvement in a drug-related case.
“Imposing a fine is not limited to a criminal conviction, as the word, in law, includes a civil forfeiture,” Obi further argued in his appeal.
