By Lanre Oloyede
Chieftain of the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, Otunba Dele Fulani, has said the Supreme Court gave an expected judgement in the appeal filed by the presidential candidates of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi, challenging the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the February 2023 election.
The supreme court had on Thursday dismissed the appeal filed by both Atiku and Obi to challenge the election of Tinubu as president of Nigeria for lack of merit.
Delivering the unanimous judgment, the seven justices of the supreme court led by Justice John Okoro, held that both Atiku and Obi could not prove that they scored higher votes than the ones allotted to Tinubu by the Independent National Electoral Commision, INEC.
Fulani, who stated this while reacting to the judgement of the seven-man panel of justices of the Apex court Thursday, said every reasonable person ought to know from the judgement earlier delivered by the appeal court that the judges already thoroughly dealt with every aspect of petitions and issues raised by both Atiku and Obi before delivering their judgment, hence there was no ground for the supreme court to rule otherwise.
Speaking on the issue of certificate forgery raised by the PDP’s candidate, Atiku who traveled all the way to Chicago in the United States to get Tinubu’s Certificates released, the APC chieftain stated that he knew beforehand that it was going to be an exercise in futility.
He argued that such case was a pre-election matter which has a terminal window of 180 days for the petitioners to present and prove their case, adding that the failure of Atiku to feature the issue of certificate forgery at the trial level rendered it a non-issue at the Apex court.
Fulani opined that another option that would have been opened to Atiku would have been to file a separate suit on forgery and criminal matter against the president beginning from the high court and follow it up to the supreme court but unfortunately, the immunity enjoyed by the president forbids anyone from instituting a criminal suit against him.
The APC chieftain advised Atiku and Obi to sheath their swords now that the case has been dusted and rested in order to allow Mr President have the peace of mind to frontally face the problem of nation building ahead of him.
He charged the law enforcement agencies to henceforth arrest and prosecute anyone who goes to the media or any public forum to insult or cast aspersions on the person of Mr President over any unproven allegations of either election rigging or certificate forgery.
“What Atiku should done was to file the case on certificates forgery separately as a criminal case starting from the high court and follow it up to the supreme Court but unfortunately he is also handicapped in this wise because you cannot institute a criminal matter against the president. So the case is as good as dead on arrival. The fact that the case was established in America doesn’t mean it will be adopted here in Nigeria hookline and sinker.
“And if he says he wants to wait till 2027 to present the case again in order to disqualify the president from contesting, well I wish him good luck but I doubt the fact that he will be able to prove the case then since he can’t prove it now.
“I will advise him to allow the president and his cabinet to be focused to do the job that is ahead, there should be no more distraction.
“I also want to use this medium to advice some unscrupulous and unguided elements that are so bewildered by sentiments rather than facts to be guided in their statement going forward.
“And I’m also advising media stations, if anyone comes there and start to cast aspersions on the person of Mr President saying he forged Certificates that is not proven, I call on the law enforcement agencies to arrest such fellows and charge them with felony to serve as deterent to others because you can not be rubbishing the image of Mr President before the media and the world. The case has been finally dusted and rested.
“There is a new Dawn in the country, everybody should embrace the government of president Bola Ahmed Tinubu. By the grace of God, with all the policies he has put in place, I know that very soon, no matter the economic conundrum we found ourselves, we’ll soon be out of it,” Fulani stated.
