Nigeria: Tribunal – Obi Failed to Specify How He Scored Majority of Votes

The Presidential Election Petitions Court has held that the Labour Pary (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, failed to specify how they scored the majority of lawful votes in the February 25 presidential election.

In the lead judgment read by Justice Abba Bello Mohammed, said the political party made generic allegations of irregularities, suppression of votes and corrupt practices to rob them of their votes, especially in Rivers, Benue, Lagos, Taraba, Imo and Osun states but failed to specify the polling units affected.

Justice Mohammed further held that LP also failed to prove the allegations of overvoting against the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their actual reduced votes.

In his petition through lead counsel, Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), Obi contended that the non-upload of results of the election from the BVAS machines to IREV resulted in blurred results from INEC with 18,088 polling unit results and votes cast by 2.55 million voters; he submitted that he was the only candidate with the majority of lawful votes cast and the 25 per cent required in the FCT under Section 134(2) of the Nigerian Constitution.