The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the Supreme Court judgement affirming the election of the 2023 presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as President as disappointing.
The apex court upheld the judgement of the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) affirming the result announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar; and the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi had filed petitions challenging the result.
However, a five-man panel of the PEPC, led by Justice Haruna Tsammani in September agreed that the petitions accordingly lacked merit and affirmed the return of President Tinubu.
Dissatisfied with the judgement, the Labour Party presidential candidate and his counterpart in PDP filed 86 grounds of appeal at the Supreme Court to nullify the judegment.
The apex court on Thursday dismissed their petitions for lack of merit.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Barrister Debo Ologunagba said the part was alarmed, disappointed, and gravely concerned with the reasoning of the apex court.
He declared: “It is indeed a sad commentary for our democracy that the Supreme Court failed to uphold the provisions of the law. Instead, it trashed the expectation of the majority of Nigerians who looked up to it as a Temple of Impartiality to deliver substantial justice in the matter regarding the case’s laws and facts.
“Nigerians earnestly expected the Supreme Court to uphold and defend the clear provisions of the 1999 Constitution in terms of qualification and minimum requirement for a winner to be declared in a Presidential election in Nigeria, especially with regards to the required statutory 25 per cent of votes in the FCT as well as issues of violation of electoral Rules and Guidelines, brazen manipulations and alterations of election results by the APC”.
The opposition party publicity scribe said Nigerians are still at a loss as to how the Supreme Court condoned the serious issues of alleged forgery, falsehood, and perjury on the altar of technicalities.
He said: “The general gloom, melancholy and sense of despondency across the country upon the delivery of the judgment is an ominous sign of eerie situation which portend grave consequences because of the disappointment embedded in the judgment”.
He said the apex court’s judgment has shaken Nigerians’ confidence in the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, as the last hope of the common man.
Ologunagba, who said their party remains undeterred, charged Nigerians not to be discouraged or allow the judgement to detract them from their collective quest to entrench a credible electoral system that can guarantee a government that truly derives its legitimacy from the people.
