Pastor Ituah Ighodalo of the Trinity House Church has claimed that judges at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) avoided the substance of the case and focused on technicality.
Ighodalo in a statement on Sunday, September 17, said that despite getting away with the act, things would be made right some other time.
The Christian cleric said that it is the right of the Labor Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to appeal the PEPT ruling.
He argued that whether it is deemed a waste of time and money by some persons, the presidential candidates are free to exhaust their options.
Ighodalo said:
“When you go to court, there are rules of the court and that’s one of my challenges with jurisprudence and justice. It’s not just what is right but also the approach and the technicality. So, the Judges have given their judgment based on technicality and I think they have largely avoided the substance of the case; it’s convenient for them and the law allows them. So, they have done it and have gotten away with it but it’s okay, there is always another day.
“Every process must be followed and exhausted according to the laws of the land. They may go on appeal and may find a court that is willing to listen to their case and the substance thereon and they may not, but nobody will say that they didn’t exercise their rights according to the laws of this country to the fullest.
“At the very worst, they will ‘waste’ some money, ‘waste’ some time but they will have reached a process and a nexus and I will encourage them and anybody else seeking justice to seek such to the end. When they get to the Supreme Court, according to the laws of the land, there is no other court to go to.
“At that point, they know that they have exhausted all their options and posterity will not ask them why they stopped midway and did not follow through to the end. There has been precedence before that cases that were lost at the lower court were overturned at the Supreme Court. So, let them exhaust the full process, if they can afford it, both in money and in time.”
