Tinubu defeats Obi again as Tribunal dismisses Obi, LP’s petitions for lack of merit

The Presidential Elections Petitions Court (PEPC) on Wednesday dismissed the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi’s petitions against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the victory of President Bola Tinubu in the February 25, 2023 presidential poll for lack of merit.

Delivering judgment, the PEPC ruled that the LO and Obi failed to establish that INEC deliberately refused to promptly upload polling unit results to its Results Viewing Portal (IReV) in order to manipulate the results in favour of President Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The Court on Wednesday ruled that INEC was at liberty to decide the mode of transmission of election results during the presidential election on February 25, 2023.

Persecondnews reports that the five-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani said according to Sections 52 and 65 of the Electoral Act 2022, INEC was at liberty to prescribe the manner in which election results were transmitted during the poll.

Consequently, the justices dismissed the petitions which demanded that the victory of Tinubu of the APC be annulled on the basis of “failure” of the commission’s Results Viewing Portal (IReV) to upload election results electronically in real time.

“The petitioner made the allegation of non-compliance a substantial part of their case. By the provisions of Section 135(2) of the Electoral Act, they are required to show how such non compliance substantially affected them. If they fail to show same, the petition fails.

“The petitioner also made allegations of suppression of results, overvoting and inflation of votes when they said that from the totality of the evidence, the elections are invalid by reason of corrupt practices.

“In Rivers and Benue states, during the collation, the petitioner alleged that INEC embarked on massive misrepresentations by uploading fictitious and incorrect votes, and that if things were done properly, they would have won the elections massively in those states,” Justice Tsammani said.

Tsammani held that apart from figures stated in the two states, the other allegations were nebulous.