The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, in an ongoing judgment, has stated that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, failed to specify how his party scored the majority of lawful votes in the February 25 presidential election.
In the 2023 presidential election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Tinubu as the winner, defeating Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and other candidates.
Obi and the Labour Party, in their petition, asserted that they were the rightful winners of the election and should be declared as such.
However, at the ongoing Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), Justice Abba Bello Mohammed, while delivering the lead judgment, noted that Obi and his party had only made generic allegations of irregularities, suppression of votes, and corrupt practices to suggest that they were unfairly deprived of their votes, particularly in states such as Rivers, Benue, Lagos, Taraba, Imo, and Osun.
Importantly, they failed to specify the polling units where these irregularities were alleged to have occurred.
Justice Mohammed further held that the LP also failed to substantiate their allegations of overvoting against the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the actual reduction in their votes.
The Tribunal’s ruling emphasized that the petitioners had only presented “generic accusations of irregularities” in the election without specifying the details, locations, or those affected.
Justice Mohammed expressed the view that it was inconceivable for a petitioner to allege widespread rigging across numerous polling units, wards, local government areas, states, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) without specifying the precise locations where these alleged irregularities occurred.
Justice Mohammed stressed that election determinations are fundamentally reliant on figures, and petitioners must establish the particulars of their claims for the tribunal to consider their case.
