In all the years that Gen. Buhari has litigated his election losses, he
\nhas always lost. The closest he ever came to a tribunal victory to annul
\nthe election was in the 2007 election where two dissenting justices of
\nthe Supreme Court sided with him on appeal although he lost unanimously
\nat the Presidential Election Tribunal where five Justices of the Court
\nof appeal dismissed his challenge of Yar\u2019Adua\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
Below are some similarities in the blunders made by Buhari in the 2007
\nelection compared to his present case in 2019<\/p>\n
INEC\u2019S VIGOROUS DEFENCE IN 2007 v INEC\u2019S POROUS NON-DEFENCE IN 2019<\/p>\n
In the 2007 Presidential Election Tribunal, Kanu Agabi SAN who was
\nappearing for INEC began by attacking the petitioner General Buhari\u2019s
\naffidavit evidence.\u00a0 They had filed 20 sworn testimonies of witnesses
\nchallenging elections in 4 states and none for the remaining 31 states
\nand FCT. However 19 of the 20 witness statements were rendered
\ninadmissible.<\/p>\n
Section 83 of the Evidence Act says a witness cannot swear an oath
\nbefore his own lawyer. The 19 affidavits were sworn before Buhari\u2019s
\nlawyer and INEC\u2019S Lawyer Agabi SAN got the court to throw them out
\nthus destroying Buhari\u2019s case. Only one affidavit from Langtang local
\ngovernment in Plateau was left and that alone could not anchor a
\nnullification of the whole presidential election with 773 other LGs in
\nNigeria.<\/p>\n
In 2019, INEC\u2019S lawyers refused to defend their case and Buhari\u2019s
\nelection unlike in 2007 when INEC\u2019s Lawyer eviscerated Buhari\u2019s
\ncase. PDP\/ATIKU, the Petitioners in 2019 raised serious challenges to
\nvalidity and integrity of INEC\u2019s conduct of the election. INEC
\nprovided no rebuttal or evidence to contradict the petitioners\u2019
\nallegations. It is trite law that any facts not contradicted, denied or
\nrefuted by a party is deemed admitted. Basically in law, INEC has
\nconceded having a server and admitted conducting flawed elections!<\/p>\n
BUHARI\u2019S AFFIDAVIT EVIDENCE<\/p>\n
While Buhari\u2019s qualification was not at issue in the 2007 election, it
\nwas in the 2019 one. However rather than depose to an affidavit
\naddressing this issue, Buhari relied on an old affidavit dated 24th
\nNovember 2014 which claimed that his certificate was with the army. The
\narmy had since denied this publicly and it is now a notorious fact of
\nwhich the judges could take note.<\/p>\n
Under Section 84 of the Evidence Act, a party could by application
\nrequest the court to re-swear a defective affidavit if done in time. Why
\nBuhari made no such request before the court or even did not depose to
\nany affidavit in defense of his eligibility to president remains a
\nmystery.<\/p>\n
CONTRADICTION BY ORAL TESTIMONY<\/p>\n
Ironically, in 2007, the only party who was priviledged to have an oral
\nwitness on the stand was Buhari. The live witness swore to one of the 19
\ndefective affidavits. Counsel to the respondents pointed out that he
\nsaid on oath in the witness box that he traveled to Abuja to swear to
\nthe affidavit. However the affidavit was stamped by Buhari\u2019s lawyer
\nbearing a Lagos address. Thus even if his affidavit were not
\ninadmissible, his testimony on the stand contradicted his testimony by
\naffidavit and thus discredited his evidence.<\/p>\n
Similarly in the 2019 case, even if the 2014 affidavit had not been
\ncontradicted by the army then and even if Buhari had sworn to a more
\ncurrent affidavit for his 2019 case, Buhari\u2019s own witness in 2019
\ncontradicted Buhari when his military colleague denied that they ever
\nsubmitted original certificates to the army!<\/p>\n
In view of this double killer punch to Buhari\u2019s own affidavit, firstly
\nthe notorious judicially notable rebuttal by the army as far back as
\n2014 and secondly the contradiction by his witness in facie curiae (in
\nthe face of the court), Buhari lost his own evidence before the court.
\nThis amounted to an own goal against himself!<\/p>\n
ABANDONMENT OF ORAL TESTIMONY<\/p>\n
In 2007, Buhari\u2019s lawyer claimed in the media that he asked to bring
\noral witnesses and was denied. Ironically the tendering of written
\ntestimony was his only hope as their party, the ANPP, had not only
\nwithdrawn its own petition but had also directed ts party members not to
\ntestify on behalf of Buhari. Thus he would have been unable to muster
\nthe live witnesses whose written statements he tendered after the party
\nforbade their participation.<\/p>\n
The court in an effort to expedite the trial and give all the parties a
\nfair chance reached an agreement with counsel to allow all documents to
\nbe tendered at once and objections to be raised subsequently. This
\nultimately helped shorten the trial which is the briefest in Nigeria\u2019s
\nhistory.<\/p>\n
It gave both parties equal ammunition for the conduct of their case. One
\ncould liken it to a soccer match in which both parties have scored a
\ndraw and have now exhausted extra time. Each side has 5 penalty shots so
\neach has equal opportunity or probability of winning. The only factors
\nthat would tilt the scores in favour of one team is if the player misses
\nthe post (e.g. over the bar) or if the keeper catches\/deflects the ball.<\/p>\n
So all the witness affidavits were included into the record. However by
\ndeflecting 19 out of 20 affidavits as being \u201cover the bar\u201d the
\nrespondents team were able to win by disallowing the petitioner\u2019s
\nteams penalty shots. This is the simplest analogy of what happened at
\ntrial in 2007.<\/p>\n
In 2019, according to public reports, the Petitioners tendered over
\n50,000 material documents, including video CDs, as exhibits while
\ncalling 62 witness. There were also two expert witnesses, one of them in
\nIT from Kenya, to validate the tons of depositions and exhibits so
\ntendered.<\/p>\n
The Petitioners reportedly front-loaded over 400 witness statements.
\nHowever, owing to constitutional amendments limiting time for hearing
\nelection petitions, Petitioners couldn\u2019t call all within the 10 days
\nallotted to them to do so.<\/p>\n
The Petitioners called 62 witnesses’ testimonies covering all the five
\ngrounds of the petition.<\/p>\n
The Respondents, INEC, Buhari and APC, altogether tendered less than
\n1000 documents through the bar. They front-loaded over 600 witnesses but
\nonly called seven within the six days allotted to them to defend all the
\nfive grounds of the allegations.<\/p>\n
Curiously, the first and third Respondents, INEC and APC, didn’t present
\na single witness.<\/p>\n
This is hugely important because pleadings unsupported by facts and
\nevidence go to no issue. INEC and APC basically surrendered to a
\nwalkover by the Respondents.<\/p>\n
It is important to note that in 2007, Buhari\u2019s lawyers abandoned all
\ntheir allegations of corrupt practices in the elections. These are
\ncriminal allegations to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. During the
\nhearing they were asked by the Tribunal to lead evidence concerning
\ncorrupt practices but Buhari\u2019s lawyers in open court abandoned them.
\nThis means they dropped the engine block of their case leaving behind a
\nsorry unmovable carcass of a car.<\/p>\n
History repeated itself when Buhari again refused to led all his witness
\nand cut short his defense after only one day.<\/p>\n
Learned counsel for Respondents in 2007 said then that Buhari had shot
\nhimself \u201cin both feet!\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2007, Buhari\u2019s claimed in the media that he lost the case because
\nthey were not allowed to call witness whereas in fact they were the only
\nones to a witness and that witness contradicted himself. In 2019 they
\nwere given ample time of six days to bring witness but only used one
\nday!<\/p>\n
The main differences between 2007 and 2019 is that Buhari was the
\nPetitioner then but is the Respondent now.<\/p>\n
More important in 2007 he was in third position and was only seeking the
\nvoiding of the election and rerun. However in 2019 Atiku is claiming the
\npresidency as have gained the majority of valid votes.<\/p>\n
In conclusion to go with a football analogy to understand the election
\ntribunal, imagine 4 teams are tied for the World Cup finals (2019
\nPresidency.)<\/p>\n
The referee gave each 5 penalty shots:<\/p>\n
PDP\/ATIKU FC took 5 shots, INEC FC took no shots, APC FC took no shot &
\nGMB FC took 2 shots, who do you think is most likely to win?<\/p>\n
The truth about a \u201csoccer ball\u201d and \u201cevidence,\u201d is no matter how
\nloud your supporters club is, or how imposing your coach, it is only the
\nball that enters the net that counts as a goal.<\/p>\n
END<\/p>\n
BARRISTER EMMANUEL OGEBE WRITES FROM USA<\/p>\n
NB Personal opinion of the writer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In all the years that Gen. Buhari has litigated his election losses, he has always lost. The closest he ever came to a tribunal victory to annul the election was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n