2023 PEPT: APC, PDP trade allegations over attempts to compromise judiciary, influence outcome of petitions tribunal

Ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and main opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have engaged in trading allegations of attempts to compromise the nation’s judiciary, as the 2023 Presidential Elections Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) commences hearing, Monday.

In separate statements credited to the political parties, allegations were made against each other of attempts to influence or compromise the judiciary in favour of their petitions before the PEPT.

APC spokesperson, Mr Bayo Onanuga and media aide to president-elect, Bola Tinubu, had earlier Sunday, dismissed criticism against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its conduct of the 2023 elections, calling the critics ‘mischievous,’ as according to him, the ‘criticism is most misplaced. It is superfluous.’

According to Onanuga, ‘Labour Party and the PDP initially sponsored calls for an interim government. When that did not get traction, they mounted vicious attacks on INEC for not uploading the results on time, using this lapse to vilify an election that was the best in our country.’

“The Labour Party and the PDP and their surrogates, some of them lawyers, clerics and some ethnic groups have also mounted desperate campaign for the postponement of the inauguration of the President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu on 29 May.

“Some other groups, including the leading labour and partisan unions, the NLC and TUC, in league with some equally partisan civil society organisations are blackmailing  the judges that will handle the petitions against Tinubu’s election.

“We have never had such post-poll desperation, except this time that we have a Peter Obi on the ballot and an Atiku that is cocksure he has lost his last chance to gun for the nation’s No. 1 seat.

Since 1999, every election held has always been disputed by losers. The winners are allowed to be sworn in, while litigation goes on. This was the case in all elections.  This is also the trend in the states.

“This has been the convention. It was the convention when Labour Party Vice presidential candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed became a senator, representing Kaduna North in 2011 under the platform of Congress for Progressive Change. His challenger went to court. Baba-Ahmed’s victory was upturned, after some months, when he had been sworn in as senator.

“We cannot change the convention now because some people believe that the men who came second and third in the poll, are pursuing cases in court.

“They should exercise patience for the judiciary to decide whether they have any strong case to invalidate Tinubu’s victory. The judiciary has always supported litigants when they have ‘substantial’ proof that they were rigged out of an election.

“As the tribunal begins sitting today, let Labour and its senior partner, the PDP stop further blackmail of the judiciary. Enough is Enough,’ the statement read.

Also joining in the party’s position, another APC spokesperson and Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo, stated that those calling for the determination of the election petitions before the swearing-in ceremonies on May 29^th ‘under our present electoral laws and Rules of Court and/or procedure are either plainly ignorant or crassly mischievous.’

Keyamo in his statement, said, Sunday night, berated Nigerians insisting on the expedited determination of the petitions before the May 29 inauguration can take place, a position also shared by the Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, in an interview which unsettled the APC camp only recently.

“It is indeed only the Respondent that can raise a preliminary objection that can determine the Petition in limine (that is, at the threshold). Even at that, the rules allow the Court/Tribunal to take the objection together with the Petition itself and give one judgment at the end in order to save time.

“So, this is a free advice to the advocates of pre-May 29th determination of the Election Petitions: they are doing the cases of their Principals (the Petitioners) great harm. They should realise that just as we say ‘justice delayed is justice denied’, we also say ‘justice rushed is justice crushed,’“ Keyamo wrote.

However, responding to the APC claims, the PDP, Sunday, said the APC had attempted using certain officials within the party ‘to compromise the judiciary with heavy financial inducement and to orchestrate trumped-up allegations of impropriety against judicial officers.’

According to the PDP, APC and its leaders should ‘immediately come clean and publicly address Nigerians and the world on these disturbing allegations and revelations which are already in the public domain.’

“Further to this is the provocative resort by the APC and its leaders to threaten Nigerians with treason for speaking out against the manipulations of our democratic processes by the APC.

“For emphasis, majority of Nigerians are insisting on the review of the February 25, 2023 Presidential election because it was marred by wide-spread manipulations, open alteration of genuine election results from the Polling Units, allocation of fictitious figures to the APC and brazen violation of the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), the Electoral Act, 2022 as well as INEC Manual and Guidelines by INEC itself in its declaration of a winner of the election.

“The bizarre response by INEC, which is an umpire that ought to be independent, to the Petition of the PDP and our Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, requesting for the dismissal of our Petition, is further evidence of the complicity, corruption and compromise of INEC by the APC.

“It is instructive for INEC and the APC to note that the tribunal hearing is part of the electoral process. The APC and INEC are therefore advised to halt further steps to hinder the ability of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to dispense justice in the matter in accordance with the law.

“The PDP therefore restates its call on the Judiciary to resist and insulate itself from the alleged and reported antics of the APC in the discharge of its Constitutional duties as independent and impartial arbiter in the pending Petition before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal,” the PDP said through its National Publicity Secretary, Hon. Debo Ologunagba.