UPDATED: Supreme Court Dismisses Atiku, Obi’s Appeal To Sack Tinubu As President

The Nigerian Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed the appeals by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, seeking to annul the election of Bola Tinubu as president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

A seven-man panel of the apex court in a ruling read by Justices John Inyang Okoro dismissed all grounds of appeal by Atiku, saying that he failed to prove the case of rigging and non-compliance with the election guidelines by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

The justices held that the outcome of the 2023 presidential election was nou affected by the Independent National Electoral Commission’s failure to post the election results on the INEC Result Viewing Portal in real time,

“Unavailability of IReV cannot be a ground for the election to be nullified.

“The failure did not affect the outcome of the election. The issue is resolved against the appellants.“

All the justices also dismissed Obi’s case as “lacking in merit.”

The Supreme court further held that a candidate did not need to secure 25% of the votes cast in Abuja to be president, despite constitutional provision to the contrary.

However Justice Okoro, asked, “Are you saying if someone scores 25% votes in 30 states but not in Abuja, he should not be president? Is that how you interpret the law?

“That is not the law. Supreme Court agrees with the Court of Appeal.”

The court therefore affirmed the decision of the Presidential Election Tribunal, as “unassailable.”

It further held that the parties will bear their respective costs.

The apex court had earlier declined to accept additional evidence produced by Atiku in his attempt tp prove the President Bola Tinubu forged the certificate he submitted to INEC.

It so doing, the justices refused to allow damaging evidence that showed that Tinubu presented a falsified certificate to run for office. 

It needs to be noted that today’s decision affirmed fears earlier expressed by Nigerians that justice would not be served due to alleged pervasive corruption in the Nigerian Judiciary.