Peter Obi’s Petition Against Tinubu Incompetent, Defective Beyond Repair – Tribunal

On Wednesday in Abuja, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal found that the petition of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Gregory Obi, was grossly inept and beyond repair, DAILY POST reports. In a judgement on multiple challenges to the petition, the Tribunal struck out several paragraphs for being imprecise, inept, inconsistent, hazy, and self contradictory.

Obi’s appeal was said to have brought various general charges of malpractices, irregularities, and corruption without being precise as needed by law in the judgement delivered by Justice Abba Mohammed. The Tribunal ruled that, while Obi claimed to have received the most legitimate votes in the February 25 presidential election, he neglected to state or define how many lawful votes he received. To aggravate matters, Justice Mohammed stated that the Labour Party’s presidential candidate begged for forensic expert reports but neglected to file them with the case or serve them on the respondents in the petition.

Furthermore, Justice Mohammed stated that Obi’s assertion that his votes were suppressed in favour of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, was ambiguous because he failed to provide any figures to back up his claim. The Tribunal also ruled that Obi’s claims that votes credited to Tinubu were exaggerated were unfounded because he never specified the amount of votes credited to Tinubu. Concerning the claims of corrupt practises, Justice Mohammed remarked that not every allegation of corruption is considered corrupt practises, and that averments in a pleading must be precise, rather than generic, as Obi did.

“The Law is very clear that where someone alleged irregularities in a particular poling unit, as in the instant petition, such a person must prove the particular irregularities in that poling unit for him to succeed in his petition,” it said. The Tribunal further found that Obi failed to substantiate the specific voting units where elections did not take place, and he also failed to specify the polling units where the complainants of irregularities reported problems.

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