The candidate of the Labour party in the February 25 Presidential election, Peter Obi , has filed a petition at the presidential election tribunal challenging the victory of Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress APC as president-elect.
In the election,Tinubu scored a total of 8,794,726 votes, to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)who polled 6,984,520, and Obi placing third with 6,101,533.
Obi filed the petition on Tuesday morning at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, Court of Appeal ,Abuja .
Obi and the LP are the petitioners, while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu, Shettima Kashim, the vice president-elect, and the APC are respondents.
The petitioners are through their counsel, Livy Ozoukwu requesting the nullification of the February 25 Presidential election alleging that Tinubu “at the time of the (presidential) election was not qualified to contest the election”.
They argued that the president-elect “was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the time of the election” and as such, all the votes recorded for Tinubu in the election “are wasted votes, owing to the non-qualification”
“That it be determined that the 2nd respondent ( Tinubu) having failed to score one-quarter of the votes cast at the presidential election in the federal capital territory, Abuja was not entitled to be declared and returned as the winner of the presidential election held on 25 February 2023,” the petitioner said.
The petitioners also asked the tribunal to make “an order cancelling the election and compelling the 1st respondent (INEC) to conduct a fresh election at which the 2nd respondent (Tinubu), 3rd respondent (Shettima) and 4th respondent (APC) shall not participate”.
