Nigeria’s Supreme Court delivered a unanimous judgment on Thursday, upholding President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 Presidential elections and dismissing the appeal filed by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, representing the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate. 

The Supreme Court ruled that the appeal lacked merit.

A seven-man panel of Justices led by Inyang Okoro upheld the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court, which had affirmed the election of President Tinubu. In the notice of appeal, Atiku had urged the apex court to set aside the September 6 judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court, which had upheld the election of President Tinubu.

Justice Inyang Okoro, while reading the judgment, stated: “On the whole, having resolved all the issues against the appellant, it is my view that there is no merit in the appeal and it is hereby dismissed. The judgment of the court below delivered on September 6th, 2023, affirming the election of the second respondent as the duly elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is hereby affirmed.”

The Supreme Court held that President Tinubu had secured the majority of lawful votes cast and that Atiku had failed to produce alternative results of the presidential election that demonstrated he had won the majority of lawful votes cast, which would invalidate the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Additionally, the court ruled that the absence of the election results on the INEC Result Viewing Portal in real-time did not affect the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.

The Supreme Court also concurred with the Court of Appeal’s position that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was not different from other states, and the failure to obtain 25% of the vote in the FCT did not impact the overall results.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court dismissed Atiku’s request to use academic records obtained from Chicago State University as fresh evidence to establish forgery against President Tinubu. The court ruled that the issue of forgery was not covered by the seven issues Atiku had brought for determination and that the Constitution did not permit introducing such evidence.

“The jurisdiction of this court is donated by the constitution and the electoral act regarding election petition appeals. We cannot invoke section 22 of the Supreme Court act since the lower court has since lost its jurisdiction. Moreover, there is no paragraph in the petition to accommodate a case of forgery,” Justice Inyang Okoro stated.

Regarding the INEC results viewing portal (IReV), the Supreme Court acknowledged that its malfunctioning could affect voter trust, but it determined that the unavailability of IReV could not nullify the election results.

“The failure did not affect the outcome of the election. The issue is resolved against the appellants,” Justice Okoro said.

In response to questions about the significance of FCT’s performance, Justice Okoro asked, “Are you saying if someone scores 25% votes in 30 states but not in Abuja, he should not be president? Is that how you interpret the law? That is not the law. Supreme Court agrees with the Court of Appeal.”

This ruling by the Supreme Court effectively brings an end to the legal challenges against President Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 Presidential elections, confirming his position as the duly elected President of Nigeria.

However, reactions from Nigerians indicate that the majority were not expecting a different judgment from the Supreme Court, which they believe has been compromised.

A poll conducted by Peoples Gazette, a Nigerian online tabloid, on Wednesday, asked whether Nigerians expect the Supreme Court to base its decision on the 2023 presidential election petitions on merit and evidence or technicality. Over 60% of the respondents answered in favor of technicality. 

Nigerians, do you expect the Supreme Court to decide the 2023 presidential election petitions based on merit and evidence or technicality?

— Peoples Gazette (@GazetteNGR) October 25, 2023

Good People, one of the things about my writing is that I write from a multifaceted angle, because my education was broad and deep. Like the lizard which jumped from the iroko tree, but none congratulated it, but which quickly commended itself for the feat, I do smile sometimes when my predictions come to pass. When Nigeria floated its currency, I wrote: “Nigeria’s floating of its currency, while progressive, will cause severe perturbations in the economy – and a stable state may not come as most experts have predicted.” As I write, after the floating reaction, Nigeria is still waiting for a stable state to come to pass, as the reaction is still happening, to the pains of manufacturers.

That call was against what JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Lagos bankers who hyped the impact in the stock market, etc, wrote. Floating the Naira is a very bad policy because we have no capacity to control the supply part of US dollars. We only need to remove the corruption in the forex administration, making sure official rates are used to enable production, not consumption. Yes, every economy subsidizes things and we can subsidize FX for manufacturers with the old regime, provided we remove the corruption in the process.

Let me quote a link from that my July 2023 post: “In his O’ Level textbook on economics, AO Lawal explained demand and supply and the movement of price on the demand-supply curve. If I apply what he explained in that book, floating naira with no capacity to earn USD dollars will kill Naira, because there is an asymmetric imbalance on demand and supply of USD in the Willing Buyer, Willing Seller nexus. In other words, two people may each have $100 to sell while twenty people want to buy each $100. If you do not close that number to near parity, the equilibrium point will keep shifting and I do not see how Naira will stabilize because demand outweighs supply here.”

Largely, the problem is not fuel subsidies, official/black market for Naira, etc, the issue is the corruption in their administrations. If we kill corruption, some of these policies are global standards in different ways. America may not have a black market, but check the last time it made profits in its postal service.That is subsidizing the supply chain.

Apt sir.
But do we really had a choice of not floating the Naira, given to the fact that we were running out of FX reserves, as such couldn't keep up with the $1.5b monthly defense of the Naira as practiced by the previous administration?

— Omoniyi Benjamin Akinsoto (@AkinsotoOmoniyi) October 26, 2023

My Response: Everything is a choice. Sometimes, not changing something is also a choice. We have opportunity cost to play here. You needed money to deal with the official black market regime. Today, you also need money to stop Naira crashing (Afreximbank, etc loans). Check well, you are still doing the same thing, after you have wiped values in pensions and savings with the FX movement. There is no way floating will work because DEMAND is more than Supply and someone has to compensate for that imbalance.

The Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee has submitted its report, chronicling ways Nigeria can use taxation and other means to fix its economic paralysis. Here are the two most interesting:

• “Expand the official foreign exchange market to incorporate BDCs, forex apps, and retail fx dealers, and outlaw transactions in the black market”. Yes, government will OUTLAW black market. How do you do that? It may even be illegal to do so (I agree that I know nothing about law).

-“Imposition of excise tax on foreign exchange transactions outside the official market”. In other words, make black market more expensive by adding tax components to it. I am not sure how the government will do that as people exchange Naira and US dollars under the mango tree.

Good People, people willingly pay taxes when taxes are working in their lives. Let’s pursue that symbiotic relationship in Nigeria.