Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja has been written to by the All Progressives Congress about the non authentic of Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi by the party.
Also, the All Progressives Congress asked the election petition tribunal to dismiss the petition filed by the LP and Obi against the emergence of its (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, as president-elect in the February 25, 2023 election on the ground that Obi, the 1st petitioner, lacked requisite locus standi to institute the petition because he was not a member of the LP at least 30 days to the party’s presidential primary to be validly sponsored by the party.
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The APC added that the tribunal lacked the requisite jurisdiction to entertain pre-election complaints embedded in Obi’s petition.
The APC, which is the 4th respondent in Obi’s petition against the process and the outcome of the presidential election prayed the tribunal reject the petition in its notice of preliminary objection marked: CA/PEPC/03/2023 and filed at PEPC’s Secretariat, Monday night, by Thomas Ojo, a member of the party’s legal team led by Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, in Abuja.
The APC prayed the tribunal to dismiss Obi’s petition with substantial cost on the grounds that it lacked merit and was frivolous.
Recall that Obi, the 1st petitioner, and LP, the 2nd petitioner, had filed a suit against Nigeria’s electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, his running mate, Kashim Shettima and the APC as 1st to 4th respondents.
Obi, who came third with 6,101,533 votes in the presidential election and his political party are seeking the nullification of Tinubu’s candidature and his election victory.
In the petition marked CA/PEPC/03/2023 filed by Obi and LP’s lead counsel, Livy Ozoukwu (SAN), the petitioners argued that Tinubu “was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the time of the election.”
According to the petitioners, there was rigging in 11 states, insisting that they would demonstrate this in the declaration of results based on the uploaded results, as they contended that INEC violated its own regulations when it announced the result despite the fact that at the time of the announcement, the totality of the polling unit results had yet to be fully scanned, uploaded and transmitted electronically as required by the Electoral Act.
Obi and the LP also urged the tribunal to,
Determine that, at the time of the presidential election held on February 25,2023, the 2nd and 3rd respondents (Tinubu and Shettima) were not qualified to contest the election.
That it be determined that all the votes recorded for the 2nd respondent in the election are wasted votes, owing to the non-qualification of the 2nd and 3rd respondents.
That it be determined that on the basis of the remaining votes (after discountenancing the votes credited to the 2nd respondent) the 1st petitioner (Obi) scored a majority of the lawful votes cast at the election and had not less than 25 per cent of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the states of the federation and the FCT and satisfied the constitutional requirements to be declared the winner of the Feb. 25 presidential election.
That it be determined that the 2nd respondent (Tinubu), having failed to score one-quarter of the votes cast at the presidential election in the FCT was not entitled to be declared and returned as the winner of the presidential election held on Feb. 25.
The APC argued that, the 1st petitioner (Obi) was a member of PDP until May 24, 2022.
