Mr Peter Obi and his party, the Labour Party, have finally dragged Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his running mate, Senator Kashim Shetima, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the All Progressive Congress (APC) to the election tribunal in Abuja over the 25th of February 2023 presidential election.
In this petition in which Peter Obi is the first applicant/petitioner and his party, the Labour Party is the second applicant/petitioner, he asks the court to grant majorly four reliefs on his behalf.
Peter Obi is asking the court as the first relief he is seeking to hold that Bola Ahmed Tinubu due to his indictment on drugs smuggling, money laundering and other related criminal offence in the USA is not qualified to have joined in the contest of the presidential election; therefore, all votes cast for Bola Tinubu are all wasted votes because he was never qualified to participate in the election ab initio.
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The second relief Peter Obi is asking the court to grant him is that the court should hold that Tinubu has not met the constitutional requirement to be declared elected for his failure to get 2/3 of the total votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT, Abuja), hence he should never have been returned elected or declared a winner.
Thirdly, Peter Obi with the Labour Party is asking the court to cancel the 25th of February 2023 general election due to the fact that the election was marred with numerous electoral malpractices and irregularities and that it failed to be conducted in line with the 2022 electoral act and constitutional guidelines. The court as a way to remedy it should therefore mandate the INEC to conduct a fresh election and Bola Tinubu with his running mate, Kashim Shetima and the All Progressive Congress (APC) should never be allowed to participate in the fresh election to be conducted by INEC
Most importantly, Peter Obi is asking the court to declare him the winner of the 25th February 2023 election as the fourth relief he is seeking.
Caveat; my unsolicited personal opinion:
If you ask me; this Peter Obi’s petition is actually very weak, but since Dr Livy Uzoukwu SAN (a reputable and experienced election petition lawyer who I have been fortunate to be taught by and I can attest to how solid he is in election petition matters) is the lead attorney joining forces with other formidable Senior Advocates of Nigeria, I can only guess that they know what they are doing.
But I can authoritatively say that if we really want to interpret the constitution the way it is as of today; the prayer that Bola Tinubu did not get 25% of the total votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory thereby failing to meet the constitutional requirement to be declared elected which is the second prayer in the petition will not fly in court but you never can tell with Nigerian courts.
Let us watch with our popcorn and see how this will unfold; the next few weeks will really be an interesting time in our political and judicial space.