In one ironic judgement, the split decision of the presidential election petition tribunal upholding the election of President Olusegun Obasanjo has placed the burden of proof on the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, which is set to prosecute its case at the Supreme court just as President Obasanjo now carries a moral burden because of the proven election malpractice which occurred in his own state of Ogun. This report moves a step further by putting the burdens in perspective.
For the avoidance of doubt, Justice S A Nsofor did not mince words. He did not even say the petition is carried or allowed or succeeds.
He simply declared: "The presidential election is hereby nullified by me."
He then went ahead to even award costs viz: "I award a cost of N1.5 million against the first set of respondents (President Obasanjo and his vice, Alhaji Atuiku Abubakar) and a cost of N3.5million against the second sets of respondents."
Had this been the majority judgement, the duo of President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar would have vacated Aso Rock Presidential Villa by now or be in the process of doing that. But this was a minority judgment. And so Obasanjo and Abubakar are still keeping their jobs.
But at what cost?
In a three to one decision, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal upheld the election of Obasanjo and his deputy.
The three Justices who turned down the petition, Justices F F Tabai who read the lead judgment, Umaru Abdullahi and Mahmoud Mohammed, even admitted that there were irregularities but that the ANPP did not prove its case beyond reasonable doubt in most instances. But Tabai still admitted that: "All allegations in Ogun State were criminal in nature. They ranged from violence, fingerprinting, official intimidation, bias and falsification of results".
All these happened in Ogun State, President Obasanjo’s state.
In an era where the crisis rocking Anambra State and which has since brought about revelations concerning how the PDP did not win the election but stole victory, including President Obasanjo’s own admission that there existed thieves in Anambra State who stole an election.
In fact, the Alliance for Democracy, AD, was very caustic in its observation:
"All these facts, which we had highlighted immediately after the election and for which we have been vilified but now vindicated by the court of appeal equally shows according to Hon. Justice Francis Tabai who read the lead judgement that "votes recorded for Obasanjo were far higher than the register of voters... in absolute term, Obasanjo received over 600,000 votes more than the governorship candidate on the same date, time and same polling unit.
"From the landmark judgement, it is now clear that the robbers identified by the president in Anambra state were equally in Ogun state. For the president who is the acclaimed No. 1 moralist in the country and his party, PDP, the time is now for him to take the path of honour: Resign now and be remembered as a man of principle or be damned."
Even the Conference of Nigeria’s political Parties, CNPP, lampooned Obasanjo: "For now OBJ must live with the heavy moral burden of the electoral magic in Ogun State, which to us is a paradigm of the entire charade called 2003 general election."
For the ANPP presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, he has made it clear that he would be heading for the Supreme Court.
But heading for the Supreme Court to fulfill the righteousness of election petition, after the first leg which lasted 18 months would not be enough. What the ANPP should strive for is to ensure that the burden of proof is properly discharged if it hopes to get victory this time around.
Buhari, at a press conference after the judgment said that much and his party members have since been speaking on how best the party can ensure victory.
One of the members of the party’s Board of Trustees, BOT, who said the party is perfecting strategies to discharge the burden of proof disclosed to Vanguard that "the party is very confident that by the time INEC is compelled by the Supreme Court to produce the EC(8) forms on which the grand total of all results it announced were collated".
The trustee, who informed Vanguard of the desire of the party to ensure victory at the Supreme Court made it clear that "while we are not saying the appeal tribunal did not do its job very well, it still remains very clear that had INEC been compelled by that tribunal to produce the forms, it would have been clear that something funny was happening in the commission consequent upon victory at the presidential polls was handed to Obasanjo."
The trustee referred Vanguard to the press statement of General Muhammadu Buhari, the party’s presidential candidate at the April 19, 2003, presidential elections.
At his press conference, General Buhari had declared thus:
"In the course of the hearings, we subpoenaed INEC to produce the EC (8) forms on which the grand total of ‘results’ they announced were ‘collated.’
"Their failure to produce the form represents either contempt of court which is bad, or that the collations could not be tendered in court on account of internal inconsistencies, which is worse.
"In either case, failure or refusal to tender the final ‘collated figures rendered the elections null and void according to the law.
"The Court of Appeal should on this score alone have nullified the elections and ordered fresh polls."
Expounding on this, the trustee of the party told Vanguard that "had the other justices reasoned along the same line with Justice Nsofor, our petition should have sailed through".
Observers had argued that the failure of INEC to produce the EC(8) forms before the appeal tribunal raises many questions concerning the overall complexion of the verdict handed down by the tribunal last Monday.
Therefore, even as President Obasanjo is saddled with the burden of morality, the ANPP and General Buhari would need to discharge the proof of burden that the petition it is bringing before the Supreme Court would succeed.
