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The All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have asked the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to throw out a petition filed by the Labour Party (LP) and its candidate, Peter Obi.
The ruling party and the electoral umpire, in separate replies to the LP and Obi’s petition asked the court to deny them all reliefs sought on the grounds that the petition is devoid of any merit and also founded on frivolity.
Mr. Obi, first petitioner and LP, second petitioner, had sued INEC, President-elect and running mate, Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima as well as the APC as first to fourth respondents respectively.
The petitioners are seeking nullification of the election victory of Tinubu and Shettima in the February 25 presidential poll.
Tinubu scored 8,794,726 votes to defeat 17 other candidates. Former vice president, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came second with 6,984,520 votes while Obi came third with 6,101,533 votes.
Abubakar and PDP are challenging outcome of the poll in a separate petition. However, the petition marked: CA/PEPC/03/2023 filed by Obi and LP’s lead counsel, Livy Ozoukwu, contended that Tinubu was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the time of the election. They claimed there were rigging in 11 states, adding that they would demonstrate this in the declaration of results based on the uploaded results.
They also said INEC violated its own regulations when it announced the result despite the fact that at the time of the announcement, the totality of the polling unit results had yet to be fully scanned, uploaded and transmitted electronically as required by the Electoral Act.
Among other prayers, the petitioners urged the tribunal to “determine that, at the time of the presidential election held on February 25,, 2023, the second and third respondents (Tinubu and Shettima) were not qualified to contest the election.
“That it be determined that all the votes recorded for the second respondent in the election are wasted votes, owing to the non-qualification of the second and third respondents.
“That it be determined that on the basis of the remaining votes (after discountenancing the votes credited to the second respondent) the first petitioner (Obi) scored a majority of the lawful votes cast at the election and had not less than 25 per cent of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the states of the federation and the FCT and satisfied the constitutional requirements to be declared the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
“That it be determined that the second respondent (Tinubu), having failed to score one-quarter of the votes cast at the presidential election in the FCT was not entitled to be declared and returned as the winner of the presidential election held on February 25.”
In its reply filed on Monday night at the PEPC’s Secretariat by its lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, in Abuja, INEC, first respondent, prayed the court to either “dismiss or strike out the petition for being grossly incompetent, abusive, vague, nebulous, generic, general, non-specific, ambiguous, equivocal, hypothetical and academic.”
Similarly, APC in its notice of preliminary objection, argued that the grounds on which the petition was based were defective, having regard to the vague and imprecise averments supporting the said grounds.
The Commision said the ground of the petitioners bordering on non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 and corrupt practices did not disclose a reasonable cause of action for failure to plead specific particulars and figures as to how the alleged non-compliance complained of substantially affected the results of the election.
It said in view of the above argument, “Prayers 3, 5(i) and 5(11) of the petition predicated on the ground of non-compliance in Paragraph 20(11) of the petition are ungrantable.”
It further said the ground of the petition that Tinubu was not elected by majority of lawful votes cast as contained in Paragraph 20(iii) of the petition was defective for failure to plead the alleged unlawful votes to be deducted and/or lawful votes to be credited to the petitioners.
INEC argued that the petitioners’ prayer to declare that Obi scored majority of lawful votes cast at the election and be declared winner was defective for failure to join necessary parties and for lack of requisite particulars and pleading to support same.
The commission said though Obi was a candidate at the election, it disagreed that he has a right to be returned as elected, not having polled majority of the lawful votes cast at the election and /or secured one quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all states in the federation and the FCT.
The commission said all political parties intending to sponsor candidates in the election were required to submit lists of their agents and they were expected to observe the election process at their units, sign and collect result sheets on behalf of their political parties at the close of polls.
It argued that some of the political party agents whose names were on the list submitted to it were, however, absent at their polling units while some others who were present neglected to participate in the election process.
According to INEC, the petitioners (Obi and LP) did not have polling agents in all the polling units across Nigeria as they only submitted a list of 134, 874 polling agents which is 41, 972 short of the 176, 846 polling units across Nigeria. It disagreed with the petitioners, insisting that they were not represented in many or some of the polling units in the country.
The commission argued that while Shettima, vice president-elect, was duly nominated and sponsored to contest the election, it also said Tinubu and Shettima were duly declared and returned as elected and issued Certificates of Return having fulfilled the requirements of the constitution to be declared winners and returned.
APC in its notice of preliminary objection also urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition on the ground that Obi, (the 1st petitioner), lacked requisite locus standi to institute the petition because he was not a member of LP at least 30 days to the party’s presidential primary to be validly sponsored by the party.
The ruling party said: “The first petitioner (Obi) was a member of PDP until May 24, 2022. 1st petitioner was screened as a presidential aspirant of the PDP in April 2022.
“First petitioner participated and was cleared to contest the presidential election while being a member of the PDP.
“First petitioner purportedly resigned his membership of PDP on May 24, 2022 to purportedly join the second petitioner (Labour Party) on May 27, 2022.
“Second petitioner conducted its presidential primary on May 30, 2022 which purportedly produced 1st petitioner as its candidate, which time contravened Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act for him to contest the primary election as a member of the second petitioner.”
The party argued that Obi was not a member of LP as at the time of his alleged sponsorship.
Arguing on this point, the party stressed that: “by the mandatory provisions of Section 77 (1) (2) and (3) of the Electoral Act 2022, a political party shall maintain a register and shall make such register available to INEC not later than 30 days before the date fixed for the party primaries, congresses and convention.”
It stated further that all the PDP’s presidential candidates were screened on April 29, 2022, an exercise which Obi participated in and cleared to contest while being a member of the party. It argued that the petition was incompetent since Obi’s name could not have been in LP’s register made available to INEC as at the time he joined the party.
The party further contended that the petition was improperly constituted having failed to join Atiku Abubakar and PDP who were necessary parties to be affected by the reliefs sought
“By Paragraph 17 of the petition, the petitioners, on their own, stated that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar came second in the presidential election with 6,984,520 votes as against the petitioners who came third with 6,101,533 votes;
“At Paragraph 102 (iti) of the petition, the petitioners urged the tribunal to determine that 1st petitioner scored the majority of lawful votes without joining Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the petition.
“For the tribunal to grant prayer (iii) of the petitioners, the tribunal must have set aside the scores and election of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar,
“Alhaji Atiku Abubakar must be heard before his votes can be discountenanced by the tribunal,” it said.
The party said the petition and the identified paragraphs were in breach of the mandatory provisions of Paragraph 4(1)(D) of the 1st Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2022.
According to APC, Paragraphs 60 -77 of the petition are non-specific, vague and/or nebulous and thereby incompetent contrary Paragraph 4(1)(d) of the Ist Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2022;
It said that allegations of non-compliance must be made distinctly and proved on polling unit basis but none was specified or provided in any of the paragraphs of the petition.
“Paragraphs 59-60 of the petition disclose no identity or particulars of scores and polling units supplied in 18,088 units mentioned therein,” it said.
The party, therefore, argued that the tribunal lacked the requisite jurisdiction to entertain pre-election complaints embedded in the petition as presently constituted, among other arguments. It urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition with substantial cost as it was devoid of any merit and founded on frivolity.
