On Monday, September 4, 2023, Politics Today featured Femi Falana as a guest.
Femi Falana, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), claims that the judiciary is dealing with unprecedented threats and extortion about petitions related to the presidential election, but that the threats are unnecessary because there is still time to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.
Since colonial control, no election petition has garnered as much attention in the nation as the one that featured as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, according to Falana.
“We have been having election petitions since the colonial era, but none has attracted such level of blackmail and intimidation of the judiciary.
“I am worried that people give the impression that everything ends with the judgement of the Court of Appeal, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal. Any party that loses on Wednesday still has the opportunity to appeal to the Supreme Court. So, what is the basis for the cheap blackmail that is going on?” the senior lawyer queried.
The senior advocate blamed the blackmail and intimidation on new voters whom he said have the belief that their candidate must be declared as the winner, saying that it is not what election tribunals are all about.
He said it is for the justices to look at the evidence adduced by the parties, apply the law and give a decision.
“As they say, even if the heavens will fall and the heavens won’t fall anyway, the judges must not be intimidated, they must give their decision regardless of blackmail or intimidations convinced that they can justify their judgment.
“That is what is required of them, to examine the evidence, apply the law and deliver a decision. One way or the other, some will lose, some will win; but those who lose in the case and are aggrieved will have another opportunity to approach the Supreme Court and demonstrate how the Court of Appeal has erred,” Falana maintained.
According to Platinum Times, the Court of Appeal announced on Monday that it would rule on the presidential election petitions on Wednesday and would allow interested television stations to stream the proceedings live.
In a plea to the tribunal, the Labour Party (LP), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), as well as their presidential candidates, asked that President Bola Tinubu’s election as the winner of the 2023 presidential election be declared invalid.