Published 9th Sep, 2023

By Sodeeq Atanda

The anxiety about the outcome of the petitions filed separately by the trio of the Labour Party (LP), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Allied Peoples Movement (APM) against the All Progressives Congress (APC) was laid to rest on September 6 when the Presidential Election Petition Court delivered its judgments.

Justice Haruna Tsammani delivered the lead judgement in which the court held that the petitions were defective and lacked merit. On the basis of that, the court dismissed all the three petitions submitted by the adversary political parties and affirmed the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner of the February presidential election.

The LP presented Peter Obi as its candidate in the election. The PDP sponsored Abubakar Atiku, APM produced Princess ChiChi Ojei while the APC presented Tinubu.

A few hours after the conclusion of the judgment delivery, some social media accounts began distributing a claim that the five-man panel of the court fined the three political parties millions of naira.

Snapshot of the post by @ONsogbu. — Snapshot of the post by **@ONsogbu**.

The accounts claimed that the court imposed the fines on the parties for wasting the time of the court. This claim went viral on social media platforms such as X, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook.

One of the major accounts that circulated the claim was @ONsogbu (Pastor Okezie J. Atañi…). At the time of this publication, the claim, tweeted at 9:19 pm on Sep 6, 2023, had been reposted 275 times, viewed by over 57.8 thousand persons and bookmarked by 24 accounts.

Breaking news:

PEPT fined three parties for filing frivolous petitions:

For wasting the time of the court on frivolous election petitions, the following parties have been fined therein in line with the Judicial act 87, sub section 390 of 1968 (as amended)

APM: N13,675,890.00…
— Pastor Okezie J. Atañi… (@ONsogbu) September 6, 2023

CLAIM: For wasting the time of the court on frivolous election petitions, the following parties have been fined therein in line with the Judicial Act 87, subsection 390 of 1968 (as amended).

APM: N13,675,890.00 only, LP: 47,910,431.87 and PDP: N23, 391,001.45 only.

The account owner further said that, “The learned judges advised the fines be paid within 48 hours after the judgement is given into the consolidated account of the Appeal court lodged at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). As the court pleases.”

VERIFICATION: On the judgment day, FIJ monitored the court’s live telecast for its more than 12-hour-long transmission. At no point did the lead judge, whose rulings other members of the panel agreed to, mention any fine against the parties.

However, we waited until the court made a certified true copy of the judgment available to the respective parties and we obtained a soft copy.

We read through key segments of the lead judgment’s 798-paged document as it affected APM, LP and PDP to verify the viral claim.

At pages 751 and 752 of the lead judgment, Justice Tsammani held that all the consolidated petitions were all devoid of merit and consequently dismissed them.

He said, “FINAL ORDERS: Having considered and decided that the three petitions Nos: CA/PEPC/03/2023, CA/PEPC/04/2023 and CA/PEPC/05/2023 are all devoid of merit, the three petitions are hereby dismissed. Accordingly, I affirm the declaration and return of Bola Ahmed Tinubu by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the duly elected president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

Snapshot of the final order pages of the judgements.

Instructively, the judge added, “The parties in the three petitions are to bear their respective costs.”

In concurring with Justice Tsammani, Justices Stephen Adah, Misitura Bolaji-Yusuf, Boloukuroma Ugo and Abba Mohammed, all abode by the consequential orders passed in the main judgments.

CONCLUSION: We conclude that the claim that the court imposed such fines or any other financial fines at all on the three political parties is untrue.

VERDICT: The claim is false.

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