Moses Ugo, one of the presidential election tribunal
justices, says the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must be an
“abysmally poor” manipulator for declaring Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar winners
of the 2023 election in certain states.
INEC had declared Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the
All Progressives Congress (APC), as winner of the February 25 poll.
Dissatisfied with the declaration, the Labour Party (LP),
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and their candidates had asked the tribunal to
overturn the results on the grounds of manipulation, irregularities and
non-compliance with the Electoral Act.
Ugo said the petitioners failed to prove that results of the
election as reeled out by INEC were manipulated.
He said it was curious that Obi and Atiku won in certain
states where Tinubu, who was alleged to have been favoured by INEC, secured
“miserly” figures.
In his ruling, Ugo also wondered why Tinubu lost in his home
state of Lagos to Obi of the LP, even though he was alleged to have been the
favoured candidate of the umpire.
“I am of the very fixed view that the two sets of
petitioners did not by any means discharge the burden on them of proving that
the results of the presidential election of 25th February, 2023 as declared by
1st respondent were incorrect,” Ugo said.
ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION OF RESULTS
The judge also ruled that the position of the petitioners
that INEC refused to transmit results electronically to IReV, the viewing
portal, in order to favour the APC and Tinubu, was not backed by evidence.
“Incidentally, that assertion of petitioners that INEC
simply closed down or blocked its IReV and e-transmission system to enable it
manipulate election results in favour of 2nd respondent, also takes me directly
to the more important question in the petition,” he said.
“Namely, whether that allegation is even worthy of belief
given the results declared by INEC for them and the 2nd respondent in the
election.
“The question is, do
the results declared by INEC support that hypothesis? I shall therefore now try
to walk us through some of these election results to see if that assertion of
petitioners is supported by the results declared by INEC.”
Ugo said it was curious that Tinubu lost in Abia, Anambra,
Enugu, Adamawa, Ebonyi and even Lagos, among others, when he was the “favoured
candidate” of the umpire.
“If all the results declared by INEC for each of the states
for the two sets of petitioners and 2nd respondent is anything to go by, then
INEC must be an abysmally poor manipulator, if not even an imbecilic one,” he
said.
“Surely, it would not go through all the stress of closing
down its IReV and blocking the public from seeing its manipulative efforts in
favour of 2nd respondent as alleged by the petitioners, only for it to still
end up favouring the petitioners with jumbo votes and posting miserly figures
for the favoured second respondent.”
‘NOT A SINGLE POLLING UNIT RESULT TENDERED’
Ugo also said the petitioners did not tender evidence of
alleged rigging from the polling units.
“At any rate, why did
any of the two sets of petitioners not tender even a single polling unit result
issued by INEC to their polling unit agents to support their claim of
manipulation of election results by INEC, even as they all agreed that they
have agents in the polling units?” he asked.
“I had thought that this is the best and most effective way
of proving the manipulation of election results alleged by them.
“After all, the
polling unit is the only place where voting takes place and so also constitutes
the building blocks of election results.
“In short, the allegation of the petitioner that INEC shut
down IReV to manipulate votes for second respondent, just does not add up for
me.”
The judge added that INEC’s position that it could not
electronically transmit results in real time on voting day, due to technical
glitches, was a more plausible argument.
The tribunal affirmed Tinubu’s election as president of the
federal republic of Nigeria on Wednesday, after dismissing the petitions of
Obi, Atiku and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).
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