On August 1, the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja reserved its judgment on the petition filed by former Vice President and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, seeking to nullify the election of President Bola Tinubu.

The panel, led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, made this decision after the parties presented their final briefs of argument.

Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deliberately ignored the technological innovations introduced for the 2023 general elections, in violation of the amended Electoral Act, by refusing to transmit the results of the presidential election electronically.

They claimed that INEC's failure to do so is a violation of the law, and they have asked the court to nullify the election results.

The statement released:

“On the issue of transmission of election results based on new provisions in the Electoral Act, we are all in agreement, including the INEC, that there is a new regime in election management.

“The essence of the innovation was to enhance transparency in the collation of results, which was an area that we usually had problems and not the actual election, and secondly, to enhance the integrity of result declared.

“We agree that INEC had an option and we brought a video evidence by INEC Chairman showing that the electoral body indeed chose an option.

“It is our contention and it is here in evidence that witnesses admitted that results from the National Assembly election were transmitted but that of the presidential election was not.

“A whopping N355bn was deployed for the election, therefore, INEC owe this court and the nation an explanation.

“It is our submission that there was no technical glitch on the election day, rather, there was a deliberate bypass of the technology in order to create room for the manipulation that eventually took place.

“Until the court makes a judicial pronouncement, there may not be compliance to express provisions of the new regime of the Electoral Act.

“My lords, Imin a situation like this, the burden shifts on INEC to explain. It is not on the Petitioner to explain why there was such technical glitch.

“We urge this court to hold that there was a deliberate non-compliance. The substantiality of the non-compliance lies on the national spread of the non transmission of results. It was national and not limited to certain polling units,” Uche, SAN, added.

The respondents - INEC, President Tinubu, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) - argued through their lawyers that the petition should be dismissed as it is without merit.

President Tinubu's team, led by Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, argued that the petitioners had failed to establish any grounds for nullifying the election.

They maintained that President Tinubu had won the election with the majority of valid votes cast.