D-37 Issues Statement Following Supreme Court Ruling on Atiku’s Appeal

STATEMENT BY D-37 ON DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT ON ATIKU’S APPEAL TODAY.

A big congratulations to our principal and presidential candidate HE Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, GCON, all genuine members of the PDP and our legal team for a gallant fight and all the brilliant legal research and arguments, which if dispassionately considered should result in a different outcome.

As citizens of Nigeria and following the charge of our Presidential candidate for all to respect the decision of the Supreme Court, we out of duty to country hereby abide with the verdict of the Supreme Court, not because it is infallible but because it is the final court of the land. We recall the words of Olisa Agbokoba, SAN who posited that “should the decision of 7 men who cannot be adjudged to be above board” decide the fate of over 200 Million Nigerians? Sadly, that is what it has become.

As a group, we do not agree with much of the reasoning behind the verdict, which is based on mere technicalities. In particular, we find the decision not to admit the new evidence because it was allegedly not pleaded at the PEPC to be untenable. Furthermore, at the time of the trial, the said deposition by the CSU was not available, because the president vehemently resisted it’s release, so it was not possible to plead it, when it was only available during the pendency of the appeal to the Supreme Court.

Secondly, what was the most significant departure between the 2022 Electoral Act and others previous to it was the introduction of electronic transmission/transfer of results real time at the Polling Units. So we are unable to fathom why the Supreme Court would lose the opportunity to make a clear point about one of the most important issues of our time, which is that INEC failed to comply by way of electronically transmitting the results as stipulated under the EA. This singular factor did everything to destroy the integrity of the elections and substantially affected the nation wide outcomes, because as was the case in the instant election, elections are mostly rigged during collation. The deliberate denial of this infringement of INEC by the Supreme Court as well as the PEPC has put a death nail through the 2022 Electoral Act; and reversed the nation to the status quo in 1999.

We sadly recognize too the casual manner in which the PEPC including the Supreme Court resolved the matter of the 25% in respect of the provisions of section 134(2) CFRN 1999 (As Amended). This decision has certainly introduced a new understanding of the conjunctive or disjunctive use of the word AND.

At this point, we can only but celebrate the resilience of the Nigerian people who gave our Presidential candidate the courage to go the extra mile to expose the forgeries that came out of CSU.

Now that the legal cause has ended, we remain committed to uphold the spirit and resolve of our citizens as they take civil and non violent actions to recover our country from this unmitigated path to destruction.

For our great party the PDP, we are not brow beaten but it’s now time for all visionary leaders to walk the long and hard path towards reformation. In the spirit of the irrepressible and courageous Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi, who if he were alive today, would have risen up to say: now is the time to conquer.

Once again, congratulations to our indefatigable presidential candidate, *HE Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, GCON, the quintessential democrat and statesman and HE Peter Obi of LP for staying the course and exhaustively ventilating this vexatious aberration of our democracy through the judicial process.

Sen. Victor Isa Kassem Oyofo

Chairman

Dr. Alex Ter Adum

Secretary