On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the lawful victor of the February 25 presidential election.
In a lead ruling written and delivered by Justice Inyang Okoro, the Supreme Court ruled that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s appeal to overturn the election results as the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) lacked legal basis.
According to the ruling, Atiku failed to show that INEC substantially complied with the Electoral Act in its handling of the election.
According to jerrymusa.com the Supreme Court ruled that an election should not be at risk of being invalidated because of purported noncompliance with Section 185(1) of the Evidence Act if the alleged noncompliance did not significantly affect the outcome of the election.
It found that INEC’s failure to transmit election results through its IReV portal influenced the outcome of the presidential poll and that the appellants had abandoned their duty under the law to prove the alleged non-compliance.
According to previous rulings, the Supreme Court established that the election result collation mechanism was distinct from the IReV portal.
The court ruled that if the IReV site goes down, it won’t affect the collation process because that was done by hand up until the last election.
However, it emphasised that voters weren’t able to monitor and double-check the election results because INEC didn’t post them electronically.
The Supreme Court expressed concern that citizens’ faith in the electoral process could be harmed if results weren’t transmitted to the IReV portal.
It ruled that an election could not be voided because the results weren’t posted on INEC’s IReV site “for whatever reason.”
It said Atiku’s argument that Tinubu shouldn’t have been proclaimed victor of the presidential election because he didn’t get 25% of the vote in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, was “misconceived and misplaced.”
The Supreme Court upheld the PEPC’s ruling that the FCT does not enjoy more privileged legal status than the other 36 states.
It supported the striking out of evidence from some witnesses who testified for Atiku during the PEPC hearing, adding that most of the witnesses offered “inadmissible hearsay evidence.