On Tuesday, the Labour Party leadership expressed concern that the party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, had not to receive the Certified True Copy of the Supreme Court decision that declared President Bola Tinubu the winner of the February 25 election.
It claimed that the Supreme Court did not rule on Obi’s complaint against Tinubu, calling the situation “embarrassing and depressing.”
The Supreme Court completed the 171-day legal battle on October 26 by rejecting the election appeals filed by Obi and his Peoples Democratic Party rival, Atiku Abubakar.
The apex court refused to consider the President’s academic records obtained from Chicago State University, which Atiku sought to tender as new evidence to prove his allegation of certificate forgery against the ex-Lagos governor, in the lead judgment delivered by the Chairman of the seven-man panel, Justice Inyang Okoro.
Uwani Aji, Mohammed Garba, Ibrahim Saulawa, Adamu Jauro, Abubakar Tijjani, and Emmanuel Agim, the remaining justices on the bench, agreed with the lead judgment dismissing Atiku and Obi’s appeals.
However, one month after the verdict, the party’s National Secretary, Umar Farouk, claimed that they had yet to receive the verdict’s CTC.
Farouk also noted in a statement made on Tuesday that the party found the Supreme Court’s position on the judgment in her appeal to be ‘exceptional, extremely upsetting, most unprecedented, and unacceptable.’
He said,
“The LP had, out of an abundance of caution, by letter dated October 27, 2023, applied to the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court for the certified true copy of the judgment in the LP appeal. There was a reminder through another letter on November 8, 2023. However, to date, the requests have been ignored.
“The LP is also aware that by the provision of Section 294(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), every court established under the Constitution (which necessarily includes the Supreme Court) has a duty to furnish all parties to the cause or matter determined with duly authenticated copies of the decision within seven days of the delivery thereof. The Supreme Court has failed to do this in the present appeal.
“In conclusion, the LP finds it very embarrassing and depressing that the Supreme Court would, after hearing the appeal by our party, refuse to deliver any judgment and also fail to avail our party of any copy of whatever it considers to be its decision. This constitutes an unmitigated breach of the constitutional right of LP and her candidate to a fair hearing.”
According to him, the only area where the relevant parties in the two appeals agreed was 25% votes in Abuja, noting that the other grounds filed to the Supreme Court for consideration in the two appeals differed significantly.
The LP secretary also expressed regret that the court failed to consider the grounds for appeal they raised, such as the forfeiture of funds derived from narcotics trafficking in the LP petition; double nomination of the third Respondent (who was not even a party in the PDP petition); and failure to comply with the mandatory requirement of Section 73(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022, which allegedly renders the election invalid.
Farouk also expressed concern about the Supreme Court’s refusal to consider the implications of the certified true copies of 18,123 blurred and unreadable polling unit result sheets they presented in court after downloading them from the result viewing portal and those issued to the party and its candidate by the Independent National Electoral Commission.