It took only about five minutes for the Supreme Court of Nigeria to dismiss the appeal filed by the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi, against the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, on September 6, 2023, which affirmed the Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, as Nigeria’s duly elected President.
Justice John Okoro, Chairman of the seven-man Panel of Supreme Court Justices, who read the lead judgement, said the Court had already taken care of all the issues raised by Obi in its ruling, earlier in the day, on Atiku Abubakar’s case.
Both Obi and Atiku had appealed to the Supreme Court after they lost their cases against Tinubu at the PEPC.
In his ruling, Okoro who had earlier dismissed Atiku’s case said that the only issue in Obi’s case, not taken care of by the Supreme Court in Atiku’s case, was the issue concerning the nomination of Vice President Kashim Shettima.
Even then, Okoro noted that the Shettima issue had been, earlier, taken care of, and resolved in favour of the Vice President on May 9, 2023, in a case brought by the PDP against the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and three others. “You were already aware of that judgement”, he submitted.
Okoro, short of calling it an abuse of Court process, and a waste of time, wondered why Obi brought the issue back again.
INEC had declared Tinubu the duly elected President after the close hotly contested February 25th 2023 Presidential Election. Atiku and Obi, who, according to INEC, took the second and third positions respectively, rejected the results and Tinubu’s victory, and proceeded to Court.
The Supreme Court judgements of Thursday, October 26, 2023, dismissing their cases as without merit, has put a seal on the legal processes.
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