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According to INEC, Peter Obi did not demonstrate that he received a majority of the votes

Jul 19, 2023 | 2023 Elections | 0 comments

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) claims that Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi failed to demonstrate how he won the most legitimate votes in the February 25 presidential election.

Mr. Obi, who placed third in the election, filed a suit at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja, alleging electoral fraud and other irregularities.

He asked the court to overturn Bola Tinubu’s election win.

He asked the court to proclaim him the winner or order a new election.

Mr. Obi and LP said that Mr. Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima were unqualified for the presidency.

They said Mr. Tinubu forfeited $46,000 in the US for cocaine offenses.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) also accused Mr. Shettima of double nomination.

The petitioners argued at trial that most legitimate ballots did not elect Mr. Tinubu.

Mr. Obi cited 13 witnesses.

After the trial, Haruna Tsammani’s five-member tribunal ordered parties to exchange their final addresses.

INEC’s counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud, said Mr Obi’s case “lacks merits” in its final written response.

Mr. Mahmoud, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), denied Mr. Shettima’s double nomination, saying the APC had withdrawn his candidature for Borno Central Senatorial District in a letter dated July 6, 2022, received by INEC on July 13, 2022.

He said Mr Shettima’s voluntary departure predated his appointment as Mr Tinubu’s vice president.

“There was no criminal charge, sentencing or conviction to substantiate the accusation of criminal conviction or forfeiture,” Mr. Mahmoud said, citing a US government letter.

He stated that “the claimed order of forfeiture, being that of a foreign court, is not recorded in Nigeria to be enforceable”.

Mr. Mahmoud noted that Judge John Nordberg of a US District Court’s forfeiture order on October 4, 1993, “is in reality over 20 years after the purported order was issued,” referring to Mr. Tinubu’s defense.

Mr. Mahmoud said electoral officers “could not transmit” the image of the presidential election polling unit results to the IReV portal on February 25 “due to the technical glitch that occurred on the e-transmission application hosted by Amazon Web Services… this technical glitch… was eventually resolved.”

INEC’s only witness presented the Amazon Cloud Trail to back his assertion that the commission’s interface experienced a technical malfunction during the presidential election.

INEC’s single witness, ICT assistant director Lawrence Bayode, “was uncontroverted,” according to Mr. Mahmoud.

Mr. Bayode said he created the INEC e-transmission system and helped fix the election day fault.
“Petitioners never pled nor established at trial any illegal votes of the 2nd respondent (Mr. Tinubu) to be subtracted from the calculated scores of parties. They didn’t add any legal votes. This plainly shows…failure to lead any evidence to substantiate the same.”

25% FCT votes
“This plainly has nothing to do with valid votes or unlawful votes,” the commission stated in response to Mr. Obi’s claim that Mr. Tinubu should not be declared the victor of the presidential election for failing to score 25% of lawful votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

It said the question “is plainly one of interpretation of the relevant constitutional provisions.”

In the INEC’s final speech, Mr Mahmoud said Mr Obi failed to “present credible evidence” for his argument.

He said INEC had no “mandatory requirement specified by the Electoral Act” to electronically submit and collate election results or completely upload the same on IReV before collation.

Mr Mahmoud said in the 14 July court filing, “The evidence offered by the petitioners (Mr Obi and LP) fails to build out a case that the 2nd and 3rd respondents need to be more competent to contest the election.

“Section 134(2) of the constitution only requires a candidate to have achieved the greatest number of votes cast and at least one-quarter of the votes cast in two-thirds of all States in the federation and the FCT as an aggregate of 37 States.

“Dismiss the petition for lack of evidence.”