Tribunal Ruling: Peter Obi Fails to Prove Anomalies, Malpractice, Overvoting Against Tinubu

Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP) have failed to prove anomalies in their petition against President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima. The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) dismissed their petition on Wednesday for lack of merit.

The PEPC said that Obi and the LP also failed to specify the polling units and places where electoral malpractice occurred, as they alleged.

Obi and the LP had asked the court to declare them as the winners of the election held on February 25, or order a fresh poll excluding Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC). They claimed that Tinubu and the APC were not qualified to participate in the election.

The respondents in the petition were the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu, Shettima, and the APC. They all opposed the petition and urged the court to dismiss it for being incompetent.

Newsflash Nigeria had earlier reported that INEC had declared Tinubu as the winner of the election, which was contested by 18 candidates. Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes, while Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) got 6,984,520 votes and Obi came third with 6,101,533 votes.

However, Obi and the LP were not satisfied with the result and filed their petition at the PEPC. They alleged that there were irregularities and malpractices that affected the outcome of the election.

The PEPC heard the arguments of both parties and their counsel before reaching its decision. Justice Abba Mohammed, one of the members of the tribunal’s five-member panel, read the ruling. He said that Obi and the LP failed to substantiate their allegations and that their petition was devoid of merit.

However, on Wednesday, the court said the petitioners “failed to specify the particular polling units and specific places where electoral malpractice occurred”.

Justice Abba Mohammed, one of the members of the tribunal’s five-member panel, said the “petitioners failed to specify the anomalies, the places where the anomalies occurred” as alleged.

It said the petitioners also failed to specify where overvoting occurred and the margin of lead of who won.

According to the tribunal, they also failed to show the polling units where their votes were reduced.

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