No challenge to the outcome of a presidential election has been successful in Nigeria since 1999 for obvious reasons. Elsewhere on the continent, the top courts in Kenya and Malawi nullified presidential elections in 2017 and 2020. But Nigeria’s Supreme Court has never overturned a presidential result.
The lead justice in the 06/09/2023 PEPT appeal court judgement Justice Haruna Tsammani, who read the verdict, said “the petitioners failed to prove allegations of corrupt practices and over-voting”.
Justice Tsammani also said that:
•the petitioners failed to specify the polling units where they alleged that rigging took place
•the petitioners failed to provide any credible evidence to prove their allegations of suppression of votes in their strongholds
•the electoral commission was not bound to transmit results electronically
•failure to upload the photographic copies of polling unit results in real time did not invalidate the election.
Such a judgement in view of the overwhelming evidence before the justices in my opinion and that of most Nigerians, is laughable and should not ordinarily make sense to agberos on the street, hawkers in the market or the political and apolitical elite.
Interest driven Nigerian politicians have a self serving “anti-change status quo mentality” which refers to a mindset that resists or opposes change and prefers to maintain the existing state of affairs as far as it suits their ambitions, stomach infrastructure and maintains or updates their status in the scheme of things. This mindset is the only reason why anyone would rationalise an acceptance of the PEPT judgement.
The argument or presentation that Tinubu worked hard for victory over time is invalidated by the way and manner the so called victory was attained. Nigerians are not dumb. They are able to distinguish between patriotism and naked Emi lo kan ambition.
My understanding of NADECO of the time was that it was a movement of various interests. Amongst them, were those fighting to restore the mandate of Bashorun MKO Abiola, some of them were those who weren’t favoured by the Abacha government, some had tribal reasons for their opposition while others might have been genuine.
Fast foward to the tragedy of the Feb 25 2023 election. That day’s poll was a tragedy because it was an unmitigated disaster for Nigeria. The peoples choice of who should be their freely elected leader was disdained as in despised, spurned, disparaged and treated with massive and audacious contempt. This is tragic because the election meant the world for our teaming youths. Suddenly, matters “Nigerian” began to matter to them. Many youths as it stands today have given up on the country, they believe something has been stolen from them despite all their renewed efforts. Instead of renewed hope, they got renewed disappointment.
It was tragic for a nation that their President and Chairman of an electoral body would openly commit themselves to organizing free and fair elections and then go ahead and conduct the worst election in the history of the world, after having deliberately refused to engage an array of computing and telephony equipment that had been purchased for such purpose.
When the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), introduced a new technology called the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), into the 2022 Electoral Act, and told Nigerians that the innovation would eliminate rigging from the electoral process, many believed the electoral umpire and heaved a sigh of big relief that the 2023 general election would be free, fair and credible.
With the BVAS technology, it was supposed by Nigerians that election results would be transmitted directly to the INEC’s server from the polling units across the country once the elections are concluded and results declared at such units. Many Nigerians celebrated the innovation, boasting that INEC had introduced a game changer to the electoral process, and that the era of rigging and manipulation of election results were over.
Despite the viewpoints of several observers including the European Union, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI) who reported that the elections fell short of accountability and “lacked transparency”, and “fell well short of Nigerian citizens reasonable expectations,” and despite calls by parties to stop the collation until all results had been uploaded, INEC went ahead and declared Tinubu of APC the winner at 4am in the morning when Nigerians were asleep and hurriedly presented him with a certificate of return at 12pm just as Nigerians were waking up to the travesty.
Since the criminality that was passed off as an election on February 25th 2023 took place, the INEC Chairman has not uttered a word of regret and apology. He has shown no sense of remorse for having failed an entire country.
Many feared that if Tinubu was sworn in before issues resulting from the impropriety of INEC were addressed, the judiciary could get compromised by the power of incumbency, into doing anything but justice in the cases before it, judging by the widespread negative perception (founded or unfounded) of the Nigerian judiciary. While this commentary does not propose to investigate the reasons for the poor perception of the judiciary among the public, it’s important to note that the call for Tinubu to not be sworn in until the final resolution of all pending election petitions was as thick-skinned, hardheaded and vehement, as the opposition to the call at the time.
Nigerians were overruled proffering the excuse that nature abhors a vacuum. They reasoned that if Asiwaju Tinubu was not sworn in on 29 May 2023, there might be a vacuum/void in governance in Nigeria because President Buhari ought to vacate the office on 29 May 2023. A country should never, at any time, be left without a leader. However, Nigerian’s argued that, although section 135(2), CFRN 1999 provides that “Subject to the provisions of [section 135(1)]”, the current president “shall vacate his office at the expiration of a period of four years commencing from the date when he took the oath of allegiance and oath of office” [the 4-years terminates on 29 May 2023], yet the president could lawfully be made to hold office until the next president is sworn as allowed by section 135(1)(a) of the Constitution which provides that ”… a person shall hold the office of the president until when his successor in office takes the oath of that office.
Time will tell if swearing in a President Tinubu under the cloud of a disputed election victory was a grave mistake which will set a very regretful precedent, or something Nigerians will accept and move on.
Anyone rationalising such a brazen travesty can be openly accused of employing the use of self serving linear logic.
It is our time and it is our turn despite the turn out of events. Time will tell.
By (Duruebube Uzii na Abosi)
Chimazuru Nnadi-Oforgu
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
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