The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) has dismissed a petition filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) challenging the membership of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), ..
The APC had argued that Obi’s membership of the LP at the time of the election was not valid as he had not been a member of the party for at least 30 days before the party’s presidential primary.
However, the PEPT ruled that the APC’s petition lacked merit.
The court also held that the APC’s argument that Obi had defected from the PDP and only joined the Labour Party less than 30 days before his emergence as the candidate of the party was “an act of interloping and interfering with the internal affairs of another party”.
Meanwhile, the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) has ruled that the Labour Party (LP)’s petition of irregularities in the 2023 presidential election was generic.
The tribunal said the petitioner failed to prove specific allegations even when the law is clear that he who alleges must prove for the success of the petition .
“Pleading must set out material facts and particulars. In the instant petition, there was no effort to prove specific allegations, particulars of complaints,”
It said the petitioners did not prove the particular polling units where the election did not take place nor did they specify particulars of polling units where there are alleged complainants of irregularities.
“It was only in one instance that figures were given alleged suppressed votes and we all know that elections are about figures,” it said.
The LP had alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) reduced their scores and added it to All Progressives Congress (APC)’s votes.
But the Tribunal said that LP failed to provide evidential bases of their actual scores before the said reductions, neither did they supply the polling units where it took place.
