INEC Says Peter Obi’s Petition Against Tinubu is Incompetent

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has asked the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to dismiss all petitions filed by the Labour Party, LP, and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the February 25 presidential  election.

INEC had declared that Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to win the election.

The commission also declared that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, came second with  6,984,520 votes, while it announced Labour Party’s Peter Obi as the second runner-up with  6,101,533 votes.

Obi and the LP filed a petition contending that Tinubu was not duly elected by the majority of the lawful votes cast at the time of the election.

They also claimed that Shettima had a double nomination in contravention of the electoral act.

Their assertion also states that the election was marred by rigging and manipulations adding that the INEC violated its own regulations when it announced the results when at the time of the announcement, the total polling unit results had yet to be fully scanned, uploaded, and transmitted electronically as required by the electoral act.

INEC insisted that it declared Bola Tinubu as the winner of the election, considering that he scored highest valid votes cast at the election and at least 25 percent of the votes cast in not less than two-thirds of the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

The umpire body emphasized that the APC candidate met all the legal requirements to be so announced as the winner of the election, adding that a candidate must not secure 25 per cent votes in the FCT to be declared winner because the FCT was not accorded any special status in the constitution as being “erroneously” portrayed by some political parties and candidates who lost the election.