A petition that the Labour Party, LP, and its candidate, Peter Obi, filed to nullify his election has been challenged by the President-elect Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC. The petition sought to invalidate his election.
He also questioned the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar,’s legality in a petition to overturn his election.
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He added that the require a run-off survey was ridiculous.
Tinubu argued that Obi lacked the locus standing to file a petition challenging his election victory in a preliminary objection he filed with his Vice-President-elect, Senator Kashim Shettima.
According to the mandatory provisions of sections 77(2) and (3) of the Electoral Act, 2022, he argued that Obi’s nomination to run for president was invalid.
He insisted that Obi’s name wasn’t on the list of LP members, pointing out that he left the PDP to join the LP less than a month before the primary election that made him a candidate for president.
On why he won the official political race, Tinubu, in the primer protest he documented through his group of legal counselors drove by Boss Wole Olanipekun, SAN, said it was his consistency and history of greatness out in the open assistance, that charmed him to a large number of the electorates across the organization.
He further blamed Obi for hopping from one ideological group to the next, demanding that the LP missing the mark on design to win the official challenge.
Tinubu told the court that he has a Bachelor of Science in Business and Administration from Chicago State University, where he has been a student since 1979. He also said that he has a lot of experience working in the private and public sectors, including working as an auditor and then treasurer for Mobil Oil Nigeria.
He asserts that “the entirety of Obi’s petition is about guesswork, hype, speculation, and conjecture” due to the fact that “there is nowhere in the entirety of the petition, where the petitioners have specified in any form whatsoever, the number of their votes that have been affected by irregularities that they bandy and what their total number of votes would have been on the one hand, and the number of the respondents’ votes that have been inflated by the much-touted allegations of noncompliance/cor
“In terms of national acceptance of the second respondent as a political figure, titan, and maestro on the one hand, and that of the first petitioner on the other hand, the second respondent is far ahead of the first petitioner in every sphere and index, and this is clearly known to Nigerians and also demonstrated by the result of the election,” the second respondent states.
While denying the claim that the political decision was full of abnormalities, Tinubu, blamed Obi for tolerating the result of the political race in states where he won and stigmatizing results from states he lost.
“The respondents will additionally battle that the solicitors have set out on a pointless pursuit in the introduction of this request and, simultaneously, are addressing consequences of decisions where the respondents lost, including where the candidates were proclaimed victors, as exemplified in section 73 of the request where solicitors were questioning aftereffects of Lagos, Imo and Level where they won, as well as Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi and Kaduna where PDP won.
“The respondents contend that the entire petition is about guesswork, hype, speculation, and conjecture, as the petitioners have not specified, in any form whatsoever, the number of their votes that have been affected by irregularities that they bandy and what their total number of votes would have been on the one hand, and the number of the respondents’ votes that have been inflated by the much-touted allegations of noncompliance/corrupt practices and what the votes of the respondents would have been on the other hand,” the petition
Therefore, he requested that the court not only reject Obi’s petition but also investigate the election results in the states that the LP had won.
He responds to Atiku Abubakar, “You’ve been losing since 1993.” In his initial objection, Tinubu referred to the PDP presidential candidate as a “consistent serial loser” who had “crisscrossed different political parties in search of power” since 1993.
He stated that he would present evidence to the court during the hearing of the petition to demonstrate how Atiku’s victory in the presidential election on February 25 resulted in the opposition PDP’s “Balkanization.”
As per him; ” Since 1993, the first petitioner, Atiku, has repeatedly run for and lost successive presidential elections in Nigeria, either at the party primary election level or at the general election. In 1993, for example, he lost the Social Democratic Party, SDP, primary election to the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola; 2007, when he lost to the late President Umaru Yar’Adua for the presidency; 2011, when he lost to President Goodluck Jonathan in the PDP presidential primary election; 2015, when he lost to President Muhammadu Buhari in the APC primary election; 2019, when he lost to President Buhari for the presidency; and now, in 2023, when he has yet again lost to the respondent in the presidential election.
“The electorate rejected the first petitioner at the presidential election held on February 25, 2023 was/is not a surprise and/or not by accident.”
Demanding that he was legitimately returned as champ of the official political race by the Free Public Constituent Commission, INEC, Tinubu let the court know that not at all like Atiku, he has been “A most predictable legislator, who has not moved political propensity and arrangement.”
Tinubu argued that the All Progressives Congress, or APC, is a national party with broad support among Nigerians.
On the other hand, he stated that the PDP had recently “been engrossed in intra-party irreconcilable feuds and infighting, both in relation to its national offices and officers, as well as the convention which produced the first petitioner as its presidential candidate.” This was in contrast to the PDP’s previous history.
This is in addition to the calamities and misfortunes that the second petitioner has experienced in recent years, including having to fire their National Chairman following the election. Documents and newspaper accounts of the various disagreements in the second petitioner will be used by the respondent.
“The respondent asserts in response to paragraphs 3 and 4 of the petition that the second petitioner has lost its relevance and popularity within its own ranks as well as among Nigerians, resulting in a disastrous election performance.
“Consequently, the second petitioner won only 33 of the 109 seats in the Senate and about 100 of the 360 seats in the House of Representatives in the National Assembly election that was held on the same day as the presidential election in 2023.
“Further, the fortune of the second applicant has likewise dwindled concerning the quantity of lead representatives delivered by it.
“In the 2023 political race cycle, the said second solicitor was simply ready to win nine governorship seats. The third respondent, on the other hand, has a better track record in elections than the second petitioner, who, in addition to winning the presidential election, has maintained an overwhelming majority in both chambers of the National Assembly and in most of Nigeria’s states.
Moreover, the Tinubu let the court know that however Atiku raised charges against political race results from states that we’re won by both Mr. Peter Obi of the Work Party, LP, and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of New Nigeria Individuals’ Party, NNPP, he, nonetheless. failed to include them in the petition as necessary and desirable parties.
“Atiku and the PDP are also questioning the results of the elections in all of the states where they won the election, without making themselves co-respondents to the petition, including but not limited to the states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Gombe, Yobe, Sokoto, Osun, Kebbi, and Katsina; whereas a party whose election is being challenged shall be made a respondent under section 133(2) of the Electoral Act of 2022,” Tinubu stated.
He argued that the petition was a serious violation of the law, pointing out that six PDP-controlled states had filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court three days after the election to overturn the results.
Tinubu argued that it was not a requirement of the law that he win the Federal Capital Territory, or FCT, Abuja, before he would be declared the President-elect, in response to the claim that he did not obtain the statutory vote.
He stated that “when considered vis-à-vis relief 150(d), where the petitioners pray that the first petitioner, who did not score one-quarter of the votes cast in more than 21 states and the FCT, Abuja, be declared the winner of the election and sworn in as the duly elected President of Nigeria,” Atiku’s call for his election to be nullified “becomes suspect and abusive.” This is because Atiku was mandated to score one-quarter of the lawful
Atiku’s alternative prayer for the INEC to be directed to conduct a second election (run-off) between two of them, noting that the request was not premised on any predicate declaratory relief, was also described as ungrantable.
“The further elective alleviation 150 (f), which understands in this manner: ‘ that the election for Nigeria’s president, which took place on February 25, 2023, be annulled and a new (re-run) election be ordered is impossible because:
Neither the Electoral Act nor the Constitution grant this court any authority.
“The court can only order a run-off election between the declared winner and first runner-up in appropriate circumstances (not in an election like the one on February 25, 2023, as required by section 134(3) of the Constitution). The mentioned relief is all around.
As a result, he asked the court to dismiss the case as a whole and strike out paragraphs 19 to 150 of the petition because they were “nebulous, inchoate, imprecise, incompetent, generic, and vague” and because the petitioners had not established a reasonable cause of action against his election victory.