We Knew ATIKU & PETER OBI Would Lose Their Cases

• Member, Pres. TINUBU’s Legal Team, B.K. OGALA (SAN) Explains

Babatunde Ogala is a very popular Lagos Lawyer. He rarely grants interviews. He rarely talks to the press. But a few days ago, he broke his rule and talked to City People about the Presidential Election Tribunal judgement. He was part of the legal team, headed by Chief Wole Olanipekun, that defended, President Bola Tinubu, his Vice & the APC at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal. In this chat with City People Publisher, SEYE KEHINDE, he revealed why Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi lost their cases at the tribunal and Tinubu won. Below are excerpts.

What are your thoughts on the recent judgement of the Presidential Election Tribunal?

As a member of the legal team and being the Co-ordinator of the legal team for the Respondents here Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (the President) and Vice President (Kashim Shettima) and the All Progressive Congress, how else will I feel than to feel good? To feel vindicated, moreso as one who was also a director in the Legal Committee on the Campaign Council, as well as being a director of the Asiwaju campaign organisation legal team. One can only feel fulfilled that 2 years of hardwork, towards achieving that victory has been vindicated, at least by the penultimate court in the land, the 2nd highest court of the land, which sat as the election petition court. So, we feel vindicated. We feel good. We believe the court has done justice, though we are not unconscious of the fact that there is still a higher court to go to, to further ventilate the petition, for those who are not satisfied, with the 12-hour judgement that was succinctly, thoroughly dissected, and very insightful, by the Court of Appeal, on Wednesday. We are happy. We feel good. We feel vindicated.

A few months back, you posted your view, on a platform, saying that you were so convinced that your legal team would win this electoral petition case, based on the quality of evidence. What gave you that confidence?

On yes. Don’t forget that we have a healthy crop of lawyers led by Chief Wole Olanipekun, and consisted of some very, very experienced hands in election petitions. Some of them are Senior Advocates, well over 50 of them, including those who volunteered their services. We have members of the outer bar, who also were well over 50, including volunteers and many more who were not in the legal team at all, who all brought their collective knowledge, expertise and experience into the defence of this petition. And in so doing, we left no room for any errors and the Court of Appeal of course agreed with us.

Let me say here that the Court of Appeal left nothing untouched, even the minutest detail. Contrary to what some are trying to make us believe. The Court of Appeal in its judgement, did address the issues of preliminary objection, it did address the issue of opposition to admissibility of certain pieces of evidence and witnesses, even as it upheld our objectives in some instances, and it rejected our objections in some instances too.

So also, did the petitioners also raised certain objections to our own processes too, and our own evidence, and all were considered.

Everybody won some and lost some. It noted all the objections, same with both parties.

But the court now went ahead and said notwithstanding upholding this objections we would still go into the case on its merit. What I will possibility call a 2nd bite.

So not withstanding that we ought not to even go into it, we would go into it just for posterity and for the sake of the higher court, and as provided by law, the Constitution to be precise.

So the Court of Appeal went into all of that. And that is why that judgement took so long and a lot of people also don’t remembered that there were 3 petitions that were considered and consolidated, in that judgement. There was the petition of All People’s Movement, (APM), there was the petition of Labour Party and the petition of the RDP. And it took the arguments in each of the petitions and came to the conclusion that there was nothing and those petitions lacked merit. But the APM’s ground was that, there was the issue of double nomination of the Vice-President.

That matter had been concluded and determined by the Supreme Court on May 26, 2023. Incidentally, I argued that appeal up to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court had decided that. But the APM still wanted a 2nd bite, for whatever purpose, the Cour of Appeal obliged them.

They ought not to, but they did, So, these were the issues. The same with the issue of 2/3 of Abuja, Section 134 and they neglected to Section 299 of the same Constitution.

They raised the issue of somebody went to school, the issue of dual citizen, all these are things that are totally extraneous, and all were dully addressed. So, the Court of Appeal left no issue unattended to, not a single one.

In my opinion, it was a good judgement, many senior lawyers have said so, devoid of sentiments. But again as Lawyers too, we have the opportunity as provided by law to appeal to the Supreme Court which everybody is looking forward to and we are waiting to receive the Notice of Appeal and the briefs. And we would go back to the Supreme Court and further ventilate.

How do you see the fact that before the judgement was delivered some people had decided to judge the case on social media and other platforms instead of leaving the Appeal Court to do its job?

Let me say this. From Day 1, our own legal team, took a decision not to speak with the media. If you see from Day 1 of the trial not once did you see any member of our team, address the press after the day’s proceeding. For us, it is unethical, it is unprofessional. As for the media, the trials are open. So, why would you sit in the court all day, taking your notes, recording the proceedings, and when I come outside I start restating the case. We said we are not going to do that.

We are not going to intimidate the judges. We are not going to misinform the public. Because there was a lot of misinformation out there. There were a lot of intimidation, like the All Eyes on the Judiciary Campaign. This is unprecedented. Yes. We al have eyes on the Judiciary because of the nature of the case. But the judiciary has now spoken.

And there was the Social media which we don’t reckon with too much, because like they say, is a market place. I don’t want to compare it with a market, because then is even still some sanity in the market.

But the Social media is almost like a jungle where all manner of cacophony of voices, of the ignorants are thrown into the mix. All manner of people are saying all manner of things.

Some purported religious leaders are also saying their own, and I was happy a few days ago when Pastor Kumuyi warned those who call themselves men of God.

We are all men of God. We are all Gods creation. I am also a man of God. You can’t be a man of God than me.

We even saw some who went on social media, in their churches, who put the photos of the judges on screens and pronouncing orders to the photographs of those judges and mentioning their names. We saw all of that. We saw outright intimidation of the Judiciary. We saw those who said they know the houses of the judges and they will burn them down.

And Justice Okoro JSC of the Supreme Court in PDP vs Kashim Shettima, Bola Tinubu & APC on a similar matter had warned that people should stop intimidating the Judiciary with the social media.

Justice Bolaji Yusuf JCA did say we would not expect the courts to go to the market to find evidence for you on the social media and from those using the social media to intimidate. For us, our eyes were on the ball. We know where the decision will come from. We knew the ultimate decision was going to be with the Courts and we focused on where we know justice will be done, not on social media, not on the cacophony by those who are untrained in the law, not on the comments of those who are totally ignorant. So, we were not bothered by what the social media was saying. We just remained focused.

Even our client, President Bola Tinubu has said they say all sorts of things on the social media and they thoroughly abused him and he just developed a thick skin to it. That was the attitude we adopted.

It is just unfortunate that some person will now ascribe to themselves the votes they never got, what they could not prove in court and they call that court of public opinion. Whose opinion?

Which public? Whose Public? Even when they talk of Public Opinion they usually talk about the opinions of Right Thinking Members of the Public, not mobs. Those are mobs.

Those are not right thinking people.

If you have a good case, you don’t need to resort to abuses, to insults, to intimidation, to blackmail. We never bothered about the social media, and that is why we never at any point responded to any cacophony out there”.

I mean, look at the most pedestraian one that came outside the judgement.

They said a certain Fashola wrote the judgement. Fashola is a Senior Advocate. He is not in the legal team.

When last did Fashola come to court or practice.

From there, the judgement came. And we got a copy and they started their baseless allegations. It may interest you to know, on the day we were going to get the judgement all parties were there. We were the last to get copies. And for our internal use, we scanned, 800 pages and we distributed it among our team.

Look at these law books on my table, it carries my stamp, Babatunde Ogala & Co. So, can I say, because my stamp is on these books that has made me the author of the book. So, if you see Ogala’s stamp on these book for example, does it mean Ogala wrote the book for the author of the book. Is that not pedestrian?

And you now resorted to pedestrianism, to start saying some people wrote judgement.

And I am happy that the Appeal Court simply ignored them.

How can you say that about a copy of the judgement that you collected from the court and did not carry any imprint and I am hearing a Frank Shaibu asking the Court of Appeal questions.

What level of ignorance can you have? And I am embarassed at our respected past Vice President, Atiku Abubakar who allowed his name to be ascribed to such pedestrianism.

This is a man who has benefitted so much from the judicial process. We all knew how in 2009, it was proclaimed that he could not run for Presidency because he was not qualified. It took the courts to say no, you are wrong. It was the same court to say notwithstanding the fact that the governor had decamped to ACN at that time, that does not disqualify him. It does not make him to cease to be the Vice-President. This was the man in 2019, who went through the same process and he had been a beneficiary and now that he has lost one of the odd cases, then the institution must be brought down.

Coming to Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi. It took him 3 years, through this same court, for his mandate to be validated as the elected governor. And Ngige was removed for him to assume office. So is it that same Judiciary that does not favour you, that has now ceased to be a good judiciary. I think we need to be careful when we say these things. It is like a football match, when a Man U and Liverpool play. When Man U wins today, the premiership is good and the day it loses premiership is not good. That is exactly what we see here. And it is unfortunate that they are allowing their names to be dragged into these. You have said you are going on appeal and you are not satisfied. So be it. That is a democratic process, not to unleash this kind of venom on society, and heat up the polity.

How do you take their views on the judgement?

Yes they say they rejected the judgement. And that they are going on Appeal to the Supreme Court. Yes. That is the right thing to do. And I encourage them to do that. I encourage them to approach the courts. That is the democratic process. That is the civilised thing to do. But when you now have a Frank Shaibu issuing such statements in the name of an Atiku Abubakar it does more damage to the brand called Atiku Abubakar.

He should have told him don’t ascribe that to my name. Don’t insult the Judiciary in my name.

How can he say the Court of Appeal should come and explain why the stamp of Tinubu Presidential Legal Team appeared on the copy of our own judgement.

The question is: did it appear on your own copy of the judgement?

You have a copy which you collected from the Court of Appeal. Did it appear there? No.

If we are as mischievous as them, we could have said they are the ones who put it there. But we said we were the ones who put it on our copy for our own internal consumption. We had paid. We have our receipts for payment. And once I buy a product, it has become mine and I can decide to put my name on it. I just showed you my books with my name and stamp on it. All parties have their copies. You have your copy which is certified.

How can a Frank Shaibu have the effrontery to even mention my name? I don’t know who he is. But like the Yorubas will say: Igi imu jina si oju, so, I should not be seen to be condescending to join issues with such low level pedestrian talk.