Justice Tsammani led the five-man panel of the Presidential Election Petitions Court that dismissed petitions filed by Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar.
Sources in the Nigerian Court of Appeal have debunked rumours that Justice Haruna Tsammani is ill and now confined to a wheelchair.
Some supporters of Peter Obi, the candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 presidential election on Wednesday shared tweets, saying Justice Tsammani had been confined to a wheelchair after suffering from enlarged prostate. However, sources at the Court Appeal told SaharaReporters on Thursday that the judge was “hale and hearty”.
“He was even in court yesterday (Wednesday) and was in the office of the Court Registrar, Umar M. Bangari, Esq.,” one of the top sources said.
Justice Tsammani led the five-man panel of the Presidential Election Petitions Court that dismissed petitions filed by Obi, Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the election and the Allied Peoples Movement, to challenge the election of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as Nigeria’s president.
The panel said Peter Obi and the Labour Party failed to establish that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) intentionally refused to upload polling unit results to IReV.
Obi and LP in their petitions alleged that the electoral body failed to upload the results quickly to alter the results in favour of Tinubu.
But the five-man panel led by Justice Tsammani in its September ruling said nothing in the petition proved that INEC deliberately did so to manipulate the results of the 2023 presidential election.
It said the Electoral Act 2022 made no provision for electronic transmission of election results.
Tsammani said the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) is the only technological device that INEC was mandated to use in the election.
According to the court, INEC regulations and the Electoral Act give the electoral body the power to decide how best to collate results, including manually.
The panel also said the petitioners failed to establish corruption in the collation of the results, among other reasons given for dismissing the petitions for being “unmeritorious”.
An X user, Jackson Ude (@jacksonpbn) posted on Wednesday posted, “JUSTICE TSAMMANI ON WHEELCHAIR, SUFFERING PROSTRATE, ANGRY WITH WIKE.
“Justice Haruna Tsammani returned from Paris unable to fix his enlarged prostrate. He has been in a wheelchair and cannot walk, according to an informant at the Appeal Court.
“FCT Minister Nyesom Wike who had gone to visit the ailing Tsammani did not enjoy his visit. Tsammani was said to have angrily told the Minister that they are responsible for his ailment.
“I am not sure what the Judge may have meant by that. But Tsammani is simply not a happy man today.”
Adetutu Balogun, MBA (@Tutsy22), a known supporter of Peter Obi, who identifies as an ‘Obidient’ (name for Obi’s supporters), had reacted to Ude’s tweet, saying, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
“Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.
“WHO ACQUIT THE GUILTY FOR A BRIBE, BUT DENY JUSTICE TO THE INNOCENT. #TheBible #Isaiah.”
Similarly, an X account associated with the campaign for the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi Grassroots Mobilization (@PO_GrassRootM) had tweeted, “The alleged report of JUSTICE TSAMMANI ON WHEELCHAIR, SUFFERING PROSTRATE is sad, shameful,and disheartening. The report alleged that Justice Haruna Tsammani returned from Paris unable to fix his enlarged prostate. He has been in a wheelchair and cannot walk, according to an informant at the Appeal Court, and him accusing some notable individuals as brain behind his illness.
“Unfortunately, many Nigerians politicians failed to realize that the tears and sufferings of the poor Nigerians will surely and always hurt them in one way or the other. No one steals from the poor and escapes the consequences and the tears of the poor masses. The reward of evil acts comes faster than as expected.”