PEPT: INEC Practically Fought Obi, Atiku — Adegboruwa Explains Why Tribunal Can’t Unseat President

Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, has said unless the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is unbundled to be more effective and non-partisan, presidential tribunals may never be able to unseat a president.

The senior lawyer disclosed this in a statement while reacting to the Judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja which dismissed the petitions challenging the election of President Bola Tinubu.

The petitioners whose cases were dismissed on Wednesday are Peter Obi of the Labour Party, the People’s Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar and the Allied Peoples Movement.

The five-man panel of the PEPC chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani held that the petitioners failed to provide credible evidence to overturn the election results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The PEPC equally over-ruled the petitioners for failing to specify the specific polling unit results they are disputing and the actual scores they claimed to have gotten.

Reacting to the development, Adegboruwa stated that the verdict of the Presidential Election Petitions Court was not totally unexpected.

According to the senior lawyer, INEC, which is in custody of electoral documents and equipment, can frustrate a petition when it turns partisan.

“The principles of presumption of regularity of elections and that of substantial conformity make it extremely difficult to prosecute elections successfully.

“In this particular case, the burden placed upon the petitioners in order to upturn the election was practically insurmountable.

“To make matters worse, INEC practically fought the petitioners to a standstill, as if it was an interested party in the whole process,” Adegboruwa stated.

The learned silk claimed he didn’t think anyone expected a different verdict from what was delivered in Abuja particularly the lawyers, adding the tension was completely unnecessary.

He was of the opinion that INEC should be unbundled to make it truly independent.

“This is why we emphasize always that the focus of anyone hoping to birth a true change in our electoral history should be on the electoral umpire. Without first unbundling INEC to make it more independent, non-partisan and effective, anyone declared “winner” will most often coast to victory in the election tribunal.

“There can be no real victory in the resolution of the legal issues by the court when the fabric of our democratic engagements seem to have been hijacked and compromised. Part of the lesson in this process is for us to go back and review the electoral process and the litigations following it. INEC as it is presently constituted cannot birth any credible election in Nigeria.

“In all, maybe there was too much expectation that the status quo will be upturned, whereas many of the principles of law canvassed had long been settled by the apex court.

“While encouraging all parties to continue in towing the paths already defined by law for the ventilation of grievances, we owe Nigeria an urgent duty to dismantle INEC, urgently.”