The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, and the party, on March 20, 2023, filled a petition challenging the February 25 presidential election held nationwide.
Obi and LP, in their petition, named the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the first respondent, the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Shettima Kashim as second and third respondents, and APC as the fourth respondent.
Obi and LP made five prayers to the court on which grounds the presidential elections should be nullified and a fresh election conducted without the second and third respondents. Their prayers were based on the following ground.
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Ground 1: Non-qualification of the 2nd and 3rd respondents
On this prayer, the petitioner said that the third respondent, Shettima, is not qualified to run for the office of vice president. This is because when he was nominated, he was the senatorial candidate for the Borno Central Constituency under the platform of the APC.
The petitioner identified the office of the president/vice president as a constituency and that of the Borno Central senatorial district as another constituency. Thus, a candidate cannot represent two constituencies.
And also, leaning on Section 33 of the Electoral Act 2022, a party is not allowed to change its candidate whose name has been submitted except in the case of death or withdrawal by the candidate. Thus, to prove that he did not represent two constituencies, Obi said he should provide a signed EC11C Form dated July 15, 2022, before he was nominated as vice president.
The petitioner said the second respondent, Bola Tinubu, must be disqualified on the grounds of his trial at the US court on drug dealing, which led to his forfeiture of $460,000.
Thus all votes to the second and third respondents were wasted, he argued.
Ground 2: The election of the 2nd respondent was invalid because of non-compliance and corrupt practice
Citing the provision in the constitution that empowers the first respondent, INEC, the petitioner said INEC provided a guideline for the election process on which results would be transmitted. It stated that election results would be transmitted through the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to the IREV portal.
However, on election day, the first respondent needed to comply with the stated guideline provided. The results from the presidential election were not transmitted to the IREV portal as stipulated.
On the grounds of corrupt practices, the petitioner pointed out variations in the votes awarded to the second respondents in some states, including Lagos, Benue, Rivers, Taraba, Kaduna, Borno, Plateau, Imo, and Adamawa, with the ones uploaded to the IREV portal.
Ground 3: Second respondents not elected by majority votes
Citing sections 133 and 134 of the 1999 Constitution, where a president is declared the winner on getting the majority votes and at least one-quarter in two-thirds of the states in the federation and Abuja, the petitioner pointed out that the second respondent didn’t meet this requirement.
The petitioner argued in his prayer that the second respondent failed to capture the majority votes cast on February 25, 2023. He bases his position on results uploaded at the first respondent’s result viewing portal (IREV), the number of accredited voters as recorded by the BVAS, and the ballot papers thumb-printed during the election.
Thus, having established their case, the petitioners prayed that at the time of the election on February 25, 2023, the 2nd and 3rd respondents were not qualified to contest.
Secondly, the second respondent’s failure to capture one-quarter of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory made him ineligible to be declared the election winner.
On the third count, the petitioner prayed for a cancelation of the election and a fresh election to be conducted in which the second and third respondents would not participate.
That the second respondent was not duly elected by a majority of the lawful votes cast for the office of the president, and lastly, the election conducted was void on the ground of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and the 1999 Constitution.
In his reaction, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, stated that the issues raised in the filed petition would address the disinformation and misinformation surrounding the election held on February 25, 2023. He said he anticipated the revelation of detailed facts as the court proceedings progressed, noting that truths behind the events on election day would be known.
The former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, described the case as a fluke. He said the Peter Obi movement was going downhill and would vanish into oblivion, describing the court case challenging Tinubu as a joke of the century, going nowhere.