- Says no evidence of conviction against him
- No law on electronic transmission of results
From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) has held that the Labour Party (LP) candidate in the February 25 presidential election, Peter Obi failed to prove that President Bola Tinubu was found guilty of fraud and drug involving $460,000 in the United States.
Justice Haruna Tsammani in his judgement subsequently held that Tinubu was eminently qualified to contest the February 25 presidential election.
Obi had among other urged the tribunal to nullify Tinubu’s emergence as president on the grounds that by virtue of a forfeiture order against Tinubu by a United States District Court, Tinubu ought not to be on the ballot.
The petitioners had during the hearing claimed Tinubu was made to forfeit the sum of $460,000 to the US over alleged complicity in drug related offences in the early 90s.
Delivering judgment on Wednesday, the five-member panel stated that the petitioners failed to prove that Tinubu was found guilty of any offence involving any act of dishonesty, adding that evidence before the court showed that the forfeiture order against Tinubu was in a civil and not criminal matter.
Justice Tsammani agreed with the respondents that Tinubu was neither arraigned nor convicted in the US over any alleged crime to warrant his disqualification.
Besides the court pointed out documents tendered by the respondents confirmed that Tinubu was given a clean bill of health upon an enquiry from Nigeria.
Further faulting the case of the petitioners, the tribunal held that under Section 269(1&2), provides that such documents must be given under the hand Police official and must be accompanied with a certificate showing that the police officer has powers to sign such documents.
Also the tribunal pointed that even if Tinubu were convicted for the alleged offence, for him to be disqualified from the 2023 election, the purported conviction must take place within 10 years to the election.
The forfeiture order was made nearly three decades ago.
Meanwhile, the tribunal has also dismissed claim by Obi and LP that the election that produced Tinubu did not comply with the Electoral Act, 2022, on grounds that results of the election were not transmitted real time to the INEC’s Results Viewing (IReV) portals.
According to the judgement, there is no where in the Electoral Act, that says election must be electronically transmitted for collation.
While pointing out that Sections 14&18 of the Electoral Act provides for the use of the Bi-modal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) for the purpose of accreditation of voters, Justice Tsammani emphasized that the ” IReV is not a collation system.”