From Nicholas Shaibu, Kaduna.
Following the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari at the just concluded presidential election, Secretary General of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Mr. Anthony Sani, has said that Nigerians will be shocked at the rate of goodies President Buhari would churn out in his second tenure for their betterment.
Sani added that Buhari’s second term in office will be tough for the cabal to hijack the president’s kitchen cabinet.
The ACF scribe, however, called on the Buhari’s main opponent in the election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to be democratic enough to accept defeat and formally congratulate the winner.
Sani said, “The victory of President Buhari is endorsement of his policies and programmes by majority of Nigerians. As a result, he is expected to build on his records, which made him to win. That is to say, the next level is consolidation of the foundation he has laid down in the current tenure.
Given the fact that governance is an act of balancing competing demands by the constituent parts by way of projects, appointments and major contracts, and the fact that no society thrives by victory of its faction but through ultimate reconciliation, it is expected that the president will live up to his pledged inclusive government. That is needed to overcome division among the people. This is very necessary because it is very possible to make the most of our God-given diversity.
“We all know that every government operates a kitchen cabinet in order to improve the quality of the decisions for good governance. It is when some of the decisions do not reflect common good and aspirations of the governed that the name ‘kitchen cabinet’ transmutes to ‘cabal’. It is, therefore, expected that the president will review some members of his kitchen cabinet with a view to erasing the name ‘cabal’ and its attendant negative implications in favour of the correct name of kitchen cabinet.”
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Advising Atiku to accept defeat, Sani noted, “It is human nature for those who canvassed for Atiku to think their candidate was supposed to prevail. But we must be democratic enough to accept the fact that we are in a multi-party democracy that thrives on majority rule.
“Those who thought the former vice president should have won are expected to accept the result with profound sense of equanimity that comes with Greek’s concept that the voice of the people is the voice of God. That is to say, vox populi, vox Dei, while the president and his political party should be magnanimous enough and carry everybody along by way of inclusive governance, since victory and defeat
All eyes will be on the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, or specifically, the Court of Appeal, which constitutionally is conferred with original jurisdiction to hear petitions, arising from election into the Office of the President and Vice President Nigeria, as a titanic legal battle is set to unfold over the February 23 presidential election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had early Tuesday morning declared incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari, who ran on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the winner of the election. Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, after collations of results of the election from the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory announced that Buhari polled 15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest challenger and the presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who scored 11,262,978 votes.
But members of the legal team of the PDP’s presidential candidate has been meeting many hours before the conclusion of the collation of the results and declaration of the winner, especially with the tally of the votes, as shown on live television, indicating that the APC presidential candidate had taken an unassailable lead over his main challenger.
The decision as well as grounds for the challenge of the result of the election, as declared by INEC was taken at the meeting.
Election Brazenly Manipulated
Few hours after the declaration of Buhari, as the winner of the presidential election, Atiku issued a statement rejecting the results.
“If I had lost in a free and fair election, I would have called the victor within seconds of my being aware of his victory to offer not just my congratulations, but also my services to help unite Nigeria by being a bridge between the North and the South,” Atiku said in the statement in obvious response to calls that he should toe the path laid by former President Gooodluck Jonathan in 2015 by calling to congratulate Buhari, as the winner of the election.
While expressing his determination to challenge the outcome of the poll in court, Atiku claimed the Saturday, February 23 election was a gross debasement of democracy. He added that there were “manifest and premeditated malpractices in many states, which negate the results announced.”
Speaking at a press conference that Tuesday evening in Abuja, the PDP presidential candidate claimed that they were in possession of the “real figures and the facts” of the election.
Atiku alleged that there were widespread vote suppression with the use of soldiers and security operatives in areas where he was supposed to have recorded wide margin of victory while fraudulent actions were taken to inflate the votes recorded by the president in areas considered to be the stronghold of the ruling party.
He pointed out that in Akwa Ibom, for instance, the result showed a statistical impossibility of a 62 per cent drop in voters’ numbers from the 2015 elections, even where voter registration and Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) collection rates were much higher. “This is why voter suppression took place. This pattern was repeated in strongholds of PDP, including in states like Delta, Rivers, Abia and Benue States. As this was occurring, we saw another statistical impossibility where the real numbers tallied in numbers increased astronomically in Borno State by an almost miraculous 82 per cent in the midst of insecurity. This pattern was also repeated in other strongholds of the APC states,” the former vice president said. “One begins to ask if insecurity is conducive to higher voter turnout and security is antithetical to high voter turnout,” he added
He also claimed it was curious that the PDP’s margin of victory in states outside the South/East and South/South were extremely slim across board, a situation he described as a ‘statistical impossibility.’
“My dear Nigerians, it is for this reason that I, Atiku Abubakar, reject theesult declared by the INEC, which declared Muhammadu Buhari as duly returned by the majority of the lawful votes. Atiku reiterated his claim that the Feb 23 electionwas the worst since the country returned to democratic rule at a meeting the former military Head of State and Chairman of the National Peace Committee, NPC, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (retd.), the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, and other members of the National Peace Committee last Thursday evening.
According to him, there were a lot of malpractices between the INEC officers, the ruling party and the military, which undermine the votes/voters of the PDP and sanctity of the votes of the people.
Boladele Adekoya, one of the spokespersons for PDP Campaign Organisation said Atiku’s lawyers are assembling evidence that they will submit to the presidential election tribunal for nullification of the result, as declared by INEC.
It was gathered that the PDP will also ask INEC to provide data on its use of card readers to authenticate voters at polling units across the country. The demand of the party at the court may also include rerun of elections, especially in states where PDP believed turnout of voters, as indicated by INEC was suspiciously low or high.
APC Ready To Defend Buhari’s Victory
On the contrary, President Buhari had insisted that he secured his re-election in a free and fair manner. “From the comment of several observers, both local and foreign, it is obvious that the elections were both free and fair,” the president said in a speech he read while receiving his certificate of return from INEC last Tuesday afternoon.
The ruling party will also be consoled by declaration of YIAGA Africa, a civil society election monitor group, which declared that that results from the observers it deployed across the country, were substantially in consonance with declarations made by INEC.
But the APC legal team is also getting set to defend the party’s victory in court, the party’s National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, told journalists last Thursday.
“We might also choose to also cross petition because there were many areas we can dispute,” said Oshiomhole, who attributed the reduced number of votes recorded in some parts of the country to the prevention of rigging through the use of card reader.
“To suggest that votes were suppressed in the South-south and the South-east is not to be able to appreciate what the resort to card readers has done to election riggers.
“When we conducted an isolated election in Anambra State, no governor secured 400,000 votes and anyone who is familiar with the realities of Rivers State know that if you conduct a free and fair election and you deny periwinkles the opportunity to come out and vote, it is impossible for them to get up to 500,000 votes. Yet, you had situations where you had 99 per cent of voters, turning out to vote in Rivers State before the advent of the card reader,” Oshiomhole said.
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Legal challenge, the right step
Nigerians are waiting for the beginning of what promised to be a gripping legal battle between Atiku and Buhari. Even then, many are also pondering on the possibility of convincing the court to upturn the victory of a candidate at a presidential election, as there had never been such instance in Nigeria’s nearly 20 years practice of democracy.
But lawyers who spoke to The Nigerian Xpress last week said even before consideration of the likelihood of Atiku’s victory in the battle to overturn the election result, the former vice president should be commended for seeking the legal option to resolve his dispute with the results of the election.
They also argued that the resort to court is a constitutional right of the PDP candidate, which cannot be denied him.
“The option of exploring legal action is a way of exhibiting maturity on the part of Atiku. And if he feels strong about it, he can ventilate his grievances in court,” Desmond Yamah, Head of Chamber, UM Yamah &Co. and former chairman of Abuja branch of Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, told The Nigerian Xpress.
In the same vein, Chimezie Nwokohu Leslie, another Abuja-based lawyer said Atiku’s feeling of being shortchanged in the election can only be addressed by seeking redress in court. He also noted that the option of going to court has helped to douse tension over the outcome of the election, as nobody can now lay claim to be doing anything on behalf of the presidential candidate.
“The only remedy available to you is to approach the court to set right the wrongs done to you. I am not one of Atiku Abubakar’s lawyers and may not be able to say this is his chance or otherwise of winning or not winning in the tribunal or in court. But it is better to go to court to have issues settled than to go and spill blood. So, to that extent, I congratulate him, he has taken the right step and should be encouraged,” Ugochukwu Ezekiel, another Abuja-based lawyer, said.
It can happen
The lawyers also argued that the fact that the court has not annulled the result of any presidential election before now should not discourage the PDP presidential candidate as there is always a ‘first time’ to any issue.
While acknowledging that they are not privy to the facts that Atiku’s lawyers are assembling to argue for the annulment of the results of the election, they, however, noted that the PDP presidential candidate had given some indications of the grounds on which he is challenging the declaration of INEC in the statement he issued after the election.
“He said there were large scale irregularities, he gave specific examples of states like Akwa Ibom and he also mentioned Maiduguri where he said he had evidence that election results were manipulated and he ought to have been declared the winner of the election. And if he feels strong about it, he can ventilate his grievances in court,” said Yamah.
He also noted that though successful prosecution of election petition in Nigeria is a onerous responsibility, the fact that tribunals had delivered ruling, which resulted in sack of sitting governors in office in the past should give the former vice president hope.
According to the legal practitioner, Atiku must prove to court that the election was conducted without substantial compliance to the law and show that the votes that he was denied or that were manipulated if taken into account, the result or the outcome of the election would not be the same.
“And in this case, the proof is beyond reasonable doubt. That has been the position of our court which in my view is erroneous.
“The requirement of proof beyond reasonable doubt is derived from section 85 of the Evidence Act. And the courts have severally held that election petitions are sui generis, that is they are in a class of their own, but the rule of proof beyond reasonable doubt envisaged that Evidence Act should not be applicable to prove electoral fraud.
“So, in my view if Atiku is able to prove that there was non-compliance substantially in the outcome of the election, he might just go home. In Oshiomhole’s case in Edo, you know that the results were announced, Governor Osunbor was in office for one year, but at the close of proceedings, the tribunal overturned the victory of Osunbor and gave victory to Oshiomhole. So, Oshiomhole has to start a fresh tenure of four years. So, even in governorship case, it is always difficult to unseat a governor, but then it has happened sometimes and it will not be a surprise again if it happens this time,” the former Abuja NBA chairman said.
Speaking in the same vein, Barrister Nwokohu said no matter the outcome of the case, Atiku would have helped to further develop legal process in Nigeria by going to court.
“Let him see what will be the outcome in court. If the court says from all the evidence he presented he should concede the election, he should bear it.
“But any ruling emanating from the suit will form part of precedence, just like the case of Amaechi and Omehia where Amaechi did not participate in election, he was nominated, but he did not sit for the election and when he got to the Supreme Court, the court said it is the party and not the candidate that the people voted and it became a locus classical. The world is dynamic, what happened yesterday may not be the thing that will happen today,” the lawyer said, adding that the legal battle would be a test for the judiciary.
“The fact that it has not happened before does not mean it cannot happen. It all depends on the evidence available. If his lawyers are convinced that they have sufficient evidence to prove substantial non-compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act, why not? I think there is substantial noncompliance. I think he has a case,” Ogochukwu added.
