- Says LP’s candidate only made allegations, failed to show how he won major votes
- Petition lacks merit
The Presidential Election Petitions Court on Wednesday said the presidential candidate of the Labour Pary (LP) Peter Obi failed to specify how they scored the majority of lawful votes in the February 25 presidential election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 presidential election, defeating Obi, Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and other candidates.
In his petition, Obi and the Labour Party said they won the election and should be declared winner.
According to The Guardian, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), Justice Abba Bello Mohammed while reading the lead judgment said the Obi and his party only made generic allegations of irregularities, suppression of votes, and corrupt practices to rob them of their votes, especially in Rivers, Benue, Lagos, Taraba, Imo and Osun states but failed to specify the polling units affected.
It reported that Justice Mohammed further held that LP also failed to prove the allegations of overvoting against the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their actual reduced votes.
The Tribunal said the petitioners only made “generic accusations of irregularities” in the election but failed to specify the anomaly, the places where it occurred, and those affected.
“They failed to state the number of votes affected and the number of people disenfranchised,” says Justice Abba Mohammed on the LP/Obi petition,” Justice Mohammed held.
The court said that although Peter Obi and LP claimed to have scored the majority of lawful votes cast, they failed to state the number of lawful votes they scored.
“The determination of election is about figures,” Justice Mohammed said.
“It is unimaginable that a petitioner will allege widespread rigging in 176,000 Polling units, over 8,000 wards, 774 LGAs, 36 States and FCT without stating the specific place where the alleged irregularities occur.
“The law is very clear that where someone alleged irregularities in a particular polling unit, such person must prove the particular irregularities in that polling unit for him to succeed in his petition.
“Labour Party made generic allegations of irregularities and said they would rely on spreadsheets, inspection reports, and forensic analysis… but the documents promised by the petitioners were not attached to the petition.”
In its own version, Premium Times reported that Justice Haruna Tsammani, who led the five-member bench, dismissed the petition for lacking in merit in the hours-long judgment.
The court dismissed the petition after resolving all three grounds on which the case was built against Obi and his party, the Labour Party, and in favour of Tinubu and other respondents to the case.
Tsammani held that the petitioners failed to prove the allegations that Tinubu was not qualified to contest the 25 presidential election.
He ruled that the $460,000 forfeiture order of a US court issued against Tinubu in relation to a drug trafficking case in 1993 did not amount to a criminal conviction that could have possibly led to his disqualification from running for the presidency.
He also held that they failed to prove that the election was marred by corrupt practices such as overvoting, suppression of votes, inflation of votes, wrong computation of votes, and allegations of votes.
He also ruled that the argument of Labour Party’s lawyers that Tinubu should not be declared winner of the election because he scored less than 25 percent votes in the FCT is “fallacious and incredibly ridiculous.”
Tsammani said the first port of call would be to consider the directive of state policy and the preamble of the constitution that provides for the equality of citizens.
The court held that the Supreme Court had previously ruled that FCT should be treated as if it were one of the states of the federation.
It added that if the FCT was to be treated as one of the other states, then “it is not superior or inferior to other states of the federation.”
Obi’s case was the second of the three petitions aimed at the outcome of the 25 February presidential election to be dismissed Wednesday.
In its own version, The Podium reports that the court equally rejected the reports of forensic analyses tendered by LP’s three witnesses. According to the court, they were either made during the pendency of the case or by an interested party.
This is as it rejected the European Union report on the polls, arguing that it was not tendered by an official of the body.
On INEC’s failure to transmit election results electronically, the court ruled that INEC was at liberty to define the mode of transmitting election results.
Earlier, the tribunal had dismissed the petition by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and its presidential candidate, Princess ChiChi Ojei, challenging the outcome of the February 25 election.
Ojei, who polled about 25,000 votes during the election had sought the cancellation of the declaration of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
However, in its ruling, the five-member panel headed by Haruna Tsammani declared the petition “incompetent” and “had no merit” and dismissed it.
After dealing with Obi’s petition, the tribunal ruled on the petition by Atiku Abubakar and the PDP.
INEC had declared Tinubu the winner of the election with 8.8 million votes. Atiku polled a total of 6,984,520 votes in the election to come second, while Obi came behind Atiku with a total of 6,101,533 votes, according to INEC.
A total of 18 candidates contested the election, which turned out to be a three-horse race
The Guardian/ Premium Times/ The Podium
