A presidential panel dismisses Obi’s claim that the 2023 election was rigged in Tinubu’s favor. The Labour Party, LP, and Mr. Peter Obi, its candidate, have denied that the 2023 presidential election was rigged in favor of President Bola Tinubu, according to the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja.

    Obi and the LP failed to provide sufficient evidence to support their claim that the election held on February 25 was marked by obvious corruption, the court ruled in its preliminary judgement, which was given by Justice Abba Mohammed.

    It was decided that even though the petitioners claimed that the election was tainted by anomalies, they were unable to specify the locations of the alleged violations.

    Read also>>> BREAKING: Election tribunal to declare judgement on presidential election Wednesday.

    The court observed that although Obi and the LP claimed that 18, 088 polling places throughout the federation had been compromised, they were unable to specify where those polling places were.

    It further ruled that Obi’s claim that President Tinubu and the APC were given false election results by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was unsupported.

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    Furthermore, it was determined that the Petitioners were unable to provide the numbers they claimed were slashed from the election results they attained in several states of the federation, particularly in the states of Ondo, Oyo, Rivers, Yobe, Borno, Tabara, Osun, and Lagos.

    It was decided that the Petitioners had also neglected to identify the polling places where there had been excessive voting or the precise numbers of illegitimate votes given to Tinubu by the INEC.

    It was emphasized that despite Obi and LP’s claims that they would depend on spreadsheets, forensic reports, and expert analyses from their expert witnesses, they failed to serve the Respondents with the documents as required by law or attach them to the petition as they should have.

    The petition contained serious allegations of violence, non-voting, vote suppression, fictitious election results, and corrupt practices, but the petitioners failed to identify the specific polling places where these incidents occurred, according to the court.

    It was determined that certain parts of the petition’s claims were “vague, imprecise, nebulous and bereft of particular materials.”

    The petition’s paragraphs 9, 60, 61, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 83, and 89 were therefore struck out by the court.

    However, the court rejected the Respondents’ argument that Obi was not legitimately nominated by the LP to run for office.

    It mentioned that the Respondents had claimed that Obi joined the Liberal Party (LP) on May 27, 2022, after leaving the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on May 24, 2022.

    The Respondents contended that Obi was not a legitimate member of the LP as of May 30, 2022, and so was not eligible to vote in the LP’s presidential primary.

    They argued that his name could not have been on the LP membership list, which was supposed to be turned in to INEC 30 days prior to the primary.

    The court held in its decision that it is unjust to treat the question of membership as a political party’s internal matter.

    It was decided that the LP alone has the authority to decide who is a member, and the Respondents lacked the legal standing to inquire about Obi’s LP membership.

    The court also ruled that the petitioners were not required to support Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who finished second in the poll, or his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, contrary to Tinubu and the APC’s claims.

    It concluded that neither Atiku nor the PDP are required parties to the petition or statutory respondents.

    Justice Haruna Tsammani, the five-member panel’s chairman, is currently reviewing the court’s ruling on the substantive issue after deciding the preliminary issues.

    Explore more news>>> Naijaeco.com.ng

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