By Ayo Yusuf
It is not going well for the case of Peter Obi at the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, which has so far dismissed two main pillars of the Labour Party candidate’s petition against the victory of President Bola Tinubu.
The Tribunal in its preliminary judgment ruled that Mr. Obi failed to prove that the 2023 election was rigged in favour of Mr Tinubu as 10 of the 13 witnesses presented by the LP candidate were “incompetent” and their testimonies “worthless.”
The court said Mr Obi therefore failed to prove that the election was marred by irregularities and further dismissed his argument that a requirement for presidential candidates to be declared winners of the election is that they must secure 25% of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
TheNewDiplomat reports that the tribunal chairman, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, ruled that there is no special status attached to the FCT and that it is equal to every other state in Nigeria.
According to the Tribunal, Mr Obi and the Labour Party failed to give specific details of infractions and dismissed the bulk of their witnesses noting that of the 13 witnesses, who testified as PW1 to PW13, only three witnesses whose statements are on oath, were filed along with the petition.
The remaining 10 witnesses, the Justice said, were subpoenaed and their witness statements on oath were found to be “incompetent” and their testimonies “worthless”.
Justice Tsammani also declared that witnesses 3,4,5,6, 7,8,9,10,11 and 13 subpoenaed by LP are not witnesses of the court. The witness statements, he said, were filed out of time.
The court noted that whereas Obi and the LP, insisted that the election was rigged in 18, 088 polling units across the federation, they were unable to state the locations of the said polling units.
It further held that Mr Obi’s allegation that fictitious results were recorded to President Tinubu and the APC, by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was not proved.
More so, it held that the Petitioners were unable to state the figures they claimed were reduced from election results they garnered in different states of the federation, especially in Ondo, Oyo, Rivers, Yobe, Borno, Tabara, Osun and Lagos state.
It held that the Petitioners equally failed to state the polling units where over-voting occurred or the exact figures of unlawful votes that were credited to Tinubu by the INEC .
It stressed that though Obi and LP said they would rely on spreadsheets as well as forensic report and expert analysis of their expert witnesses, they failed to attach the documents to the petition or serve same on the Respondents as required by the law.
The court held that though the petition contained serious allegations that bordered on violence, non-voting, suppression of votes, fictitious entry of election results and corrupt practices, the Petitioners, however, failed to give particulars of specific polling units where the incidences took place.
It held that several portions of the petition that contained the allegations, were “vague, imprecise, nebulous and bereft of particular materials.”
Therefore, the court, struck out paragraphs 9, 60, 61, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 83 and 89 of the petition.
Nevertheless, the court dismissed the contention of the Respondents that Obi was not validly nominated by the LP to contest the presidential election.
It noted that the Respondents had argued that Obi left the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on May 24, 2022 and joined the LP on May 27, 2022.
