Presidential Election Tribunal Verdict Disappointing, Retrogressive, says A2J

Recall that PEPC validated the electoral victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidates, Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, at the 2023 presidential poll last Tuesday.

In a statement, Convener, A2J, Joseph Otteh said the court discountenanced substantial amounts of testimonies and evidence, simply by saying they were either filed out of time, or were introduced using wrong procedures.

“It is deeply unfortunate that in the 21st century, Nigeria’s judiciary is unable to navigate away from fruitless, crippling legalisms to enable it better engage with the real merit of matters that are of high public interest and lie at the very heart of democratic governance.

“The judgment has very little to commend it and it is short of important contexts which ought to have informed its perspective. It does not take account of Nigeria’s chequered history of badly run elections, vote manipulations and fraudulently contrived results; it did not factor in the long struggles to reform the electoral process, and the reforms adopted to reduce electoral fraud – and how BVAS and IREV played into that strategy.

“It also failed to acknowledge the importance of transparent elections and of maintaining the integrity of votes cast at elections, nor consider how the introduction of technology such as BVAS and IREV was geared towards improving transparency and increasing public confidence in election outcomes,” it regretted.

The PEPC, the group said, simply treated the technological reforms as though they had no value, function, or purpose and were totally meaningless; reducing them to sterile, discretionary additions.

According to A2J, it hoped that the judgment will not represent the ultimate reality of what Nigerians are faced with.

Guardian