The All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidates Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima were declared the winners of the 2023 presidential election after a 13-hour hearing by the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
Although the petition from the LP and Obi was called first, the panel's decision began with that of the APM.
The court acted swiftly to dismiss the APM's petition, which contested the nomination of the respondents, on the grounds that the nomination dispute, which is a pre-election matter, is outside the court's purview as an election tribunal.
The question should have been brought up in front of the lower court, the court ruled, and even if it was to be heard by the PEPC, the issue is statute barred.
In addition, Justice Tsammani ruled that the petitioner lacked locus standi to file the lawsuit because it was against the law for one political party to challenge another's method of selecting a candidate.
As stated in Articles 131 and 137 of the Constitution, the court decided that an illegal nomination or a double nomination did not serve as a reason for disqualification with regard to the presidential election.
The panel determined that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) cannot be forced to electronically transmit election results in the case of LP and Obi.
It also ruled that the petitioner, LP, could not bring up the matter because a Federal High Court decision on the matter has not been overturned, making the ruling still enforceable.
In addition to the Federal High Court's ruling, neither the Electoral Act of 2022 nor the INEC handbook, according to Justice Tsammani, made particular provision for electronic transmission.
“Nothing in the Electoral Act 2022 specifically states that BVAS should be used to transmit election results,†he said.
The court further determined that the petitioner had failed to establish that INEC had purposefully coded the system to alter or rig the election.
Regarding Tinubu's eligibility to run for office, the court determined that the fine he was ordered to pay by an American court during a civil forfeiture process did not bar him.
The court claimed that the penalty levied by the American court did not meet the requirements for a fine for fraud or dishonesty under Section 137(1)(d) of the Constitution.
It further stated that in order to prove their convictions outside of the country, the petitioners had not complied with Sections 249(1) and (2) of the Evidence Act.
It was determined that the U.S. court case involved a civil matter, not a criminal one, and that even if it had been, Section 137(1)(e) of the Constitution required that any conviction or fine occur within ten years of the person's disqualification.
The court also rejected the claim that in order to win the presidential election, a candidate required to receive 25% of the vote in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The court ruled that FCT inhabitants do not enjoy the exclusive benefits that the petitioners claimed they did.
The three witness reports from LP's forensic examinations were also disregarded by the court. According to the ruling, an interested party conducted the studies prior to the petition's filing, and the expert witness was a
This occurred when it rejected the European Union's (EU) report on the polls, claiming that it was not submitted by an official of the organisation.
The petition filed by Obi and LP had already had roughly 17 paragraphs thrown out by the court for being too general and unclear.
The petitioners asserted charges of malpractice and irregularities in the conduct of the election, but the petitioners failed to provide concrete information to support the allegations, the court found in a decision on some arguments filed by the petition's respondents.