Peter Gregory Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party, filed a petition, but the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal found it to be seriously flawed and irreparable on Wednesday in Abuja.
In a ruling on several objections against the petition, the tribunal struck out several paragraphs of the petition for being vague, incompetent, inconsistent, nebulous, and self-contradictory.
In the ruling delivered by Justice Abba Mohammed, Obi’s petition was said to have raised several general allegations of malpractice, irregularities, and corruption without being specific as required by law.
The Tribunal held that while Obi claimed to have scored the highest number of lawful votes in the February 25 presidential election, he failed completely to state or specify the number of lawful votes he claimed to have won.
Justice Mohammed said that to worsen the situation, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate pleaded for the report of forensic experts but failed to file the report along with the petition or serve the same on the respondents in the petition.
Besides, Justice Mohammed said Obi’s claim that his votes were suppressed in favor of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, was vague because he failed to give out any figures of votes to establish the claim.
The Tribunal also held that Obi’s allegations that votes credited to Tinubu were inflated were untenable because he never mentioned the number of votes credited to Tinubu.
On the allegations of corrupt practices, Justice Mohammed stated that not every allegation of corruption is regarded as corrupt practices, adding that averments in a pleading must be specific and not general, as done by Obi.
“The Law is very clear that where someone alleges irregularities in a particular polling unit, as in the instant petition, such a person must prove the particular irregularities in that polling unit for him to succeed in his petition,” it held.
The Tribunal also held that Obi did not prove the particular polling units where elections did not take place and that he also failed to specify the particular polling units where the complainants of irregularities were alleged
Details later…
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