Days after the affirmation of the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu by the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), the Coalition for Protection of Democracy (COPDEM) has faulted the verdict.
The Coalition in a statement issued by its spokesman, Garba Danjuma, in Abuja on Friday, described the verdict as “a miscarriage of justice,” particularly against the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi.
It wondered how a court could submit that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was not under obligation to transmit results electronically, saying that the position of PEPT on that issue must be challenged at the Supreme Court.
The state read in part, “The position of PEPT that INEC is under no obligation to transmit results electronically, signals a return to the era of collation fraud and untrammeled impunity.
“One may grant that a better view may have been that even though a duty exists to transmit results electronically, it had not been established by the petitioners that the failure to do so substantially affected the result of the election in this instance.
“But the implication of the judgement on electronic transfer of results is that all the innovations and checkmates against electoral fraud contained in the 2022 Electoral Act have been capriciously cast into the dustbin of history.”
The Coalition declared that its legal team would study the judgement and “come out with a robust submission that cannot be ignored in a court of law.”
