Nigeria Supreme Court Upholds Tinubu as Election Winner

Nigeria’s Supreme Court has confirmed President Bola Tinubu as the winner of February’s presidential election, dismissing challenges brought by his political opposition, who cited irregularities in the voting system as well as that Tinubu lacked qualifications.

The court said Thursday that the challenges were “devoid of merits.” The ruling follows a decision in which two other candidates saw their petitions rejected by an appeals court last month, clearing the way for Tinubu’s presidency.

Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, or PDP, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, came in second and third, respectively, in the February vote appealed the election results, stating that the electoral commission failed to electronically transmit results from polling stations to an online portal.

They also argued that Tinubu had won less than 25% of the vote in the federal capital, Abuja, which fell short of the legal requirement to become president.

Although Atiku Abubakar’s lawyers tried to submit evidence that Tinubu had forged academic credentials from an American university, but the Supreme Court denied this, stating that it was not reflected in the original petition within the time frame provided by the Nigerian Constitution.

Justice Inyang Okoro said “Facts and documents which were not pleaded in the petition have no place in deciding the dispute between the parties”.

The judges dismissed all their arguments.

The court’s ruling follows a trend in which several other Nigerian elections have been challenged for alleged ballot-tampering and fraud, but none have been overturned.

“We are all members of one household, and this moment demands that we continue to work and build our country together,” Tinubu said in a statement.