06th September 2023.
ABUJA, Nigeria – The Nigeria’s Election Tribunal has delivered a decision that has solidified the outcome of Nigeria’s presidential election conducted earlier this year. The election tribunal has ruled in favor of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, dismissing the opposition’s claims of electoral malpractice.
The tribunal’s ruling, announced on Wednesday 06, came after Nigeria’s main opposition parties were unable to provide sufficient evidence to challenge the victory of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) in February’s hotly contested election.
“This petition is hereby declared unmeritorious,” declared one of the judges as they rejected the opposition’s challenge to Bola Tinubu’s win in the presidential election.
Tinubu, representing the APC, had been declared the president with approximately a third of the votes, leading his closest rivals, Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party. Both Abubakar and Obi had raised concerns about irregularities and asked the court to invalidate the election.
However, the judges unanimously rejected all claims made by Labour Party candidate Peter Obi, including allegations of fraud, charges that electoral authorities had broken the law, and claims that Tinubu was ineligible to run for the presidency.
The court is also expected to dismiss a second opposition party petition challenging the election results.
It’s worth noting that no legal challenge to the outcome of a presidential election has succeeded in Nigeria, a country that returned to democracy in 1999 after three decades of almost uninterrupted military rule, and has had a history of electoral fraud.
While international observers had noted problems with the elections, including operational failures and a lack of transparency that reduced public trust in the process, there was little indication of widespread public opposition to the results.
President Tinubu, whose legitimacy has been acknowledged by the international community, was even preparing to take part in the G20 summit in India as the tribunal delivered its ruling.
