President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima have appealed to the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal not to invalidate the results of the February 25 presidential election. Their plea specifically concerns the controversy surrounding the attainment of 25 percent of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
In their final address, presented by their lead counsel Wole Olanipekun, Tinubu and Shettima argued for the dismissal of the petition filed by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi. Olanipekun dismissed the challengers’ arguments and testimonies as baseless, exaggerated, and reliant on hearsay.
The lead counsel called on the court to reject the petition entirely, as it lacked substance and merit. He emphasized that the petitioners’ argument, suggesting that Tinubu and Shettima’s election should be nullified for not achieving 25 percent or one-quarter of the votes in the FCT, had no legal basis. According to Olanipekun, the use of the conjunction “and” in the constitution is to be interpreted as connecting rather than separating.
“The appellant failed to recognize that judges do not possess the power of clairvoyance, which involves making predictions and subsequently proclaiming a new leader in place of a deceased one,” Olanipekun stated. He further asserted that judges cannot perform miracles when handling civil claims, nor fabricate evidence to assist a plaintiff in winning their case.