CENTUS NWEZE Reporting
Labour Party, LP, Presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his party, on Tuesday, put before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT, their bid to contest the declaration Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as president elect. But in so doing, LP and its candidate put not only APC and the shoddy electoral umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on trial, but also, the entire judicial system of the country.
Even more mind blowing, global police and bastion of electoral democracy, the United States, US, gets to walk its talk over these years of preachment on electoral reforms in Africa and Nigeria.
For the first time, election petition in the country may be having a witness from the US justice system testify against a president elect in the country.
The presidential election of February 25 generated and is still generating controversy largely on account of massive irregularities that key contestants apart from LP insist Tinubu benefited from.
Obi had insisted, famously, that he actually won the election and would prove it.
As earlier reported by Truth Live News, on Tuesday, his legal team submitted its petition to the PEPT, a day to the 21 days after election time frame, that allows for such petitions. This was after what appears to be attempts by INEC to frustrate the party’s legal team, debarring it from accessing electoral records pertaining to the election despite court order compelling them to do so.
But with contents of the 99 leaves petition by Obi, it may well appear that INEC and APC have bigger problems on the controversial mandate.
Obi is contending that Tinubu, ab initio, isn’t qualified to contest the February 25 election on grounds that he has been convicted of criminal charges in the US.
The electoral law in Nigeria expressly forbids such tainted individual from contesting elections in the country. LP is relying on court documents from the US that links Tinubu with drug trafficking case.
In a copy of the petition seen by Truth Live News, LP’s legal team contends that in an instance of forfeiture “Judge John A. Nordberg in Case number 93C 4483 “ordered on October 4, 1993 on page 3 as follows:
“That the funds in the amount of $460,000 in account 263226700 held by First Heritage Bank in the name of Bola Tinubu represent the proceeds of narcotics trafficking or were involved in financial transactions in violation of 18 U.S.C. sS1956 and 1957 and therefore these funds are forfeited to the United States pursuant to 21 U.S.C. $ 38l(aN6) and 18 U.S.C. $982.
“That First Heritage Bank shall issue a check in the amount of S460,000 payable to Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and that these funds shall be disposed of according to law; it is further ORDERD that the Court shall retain jurisdiction over this action in order to implement and enforce the terms of this Decree of Forfeiture.”
“The above orders were made pursuant to paragraph 5 of the “Stipulations and Compromise Settlement of Claims to the Funds held by Heritage Bank and CitiBank” filed by the parties, which stated as follows:
“The parties further agree that $460,000 from the defendant account held by Heritage bank in the name of Bola Tinubu shall be forfeited by the United States and disposed of according to law. The funds remaining in the account shall be released to Tinubu.”
There are talks that this aspect of the litigation may require inputs from US DEA agents in Nigerian courts.
Tinubu’s mandate faces another huddle in respect to his deputy, Kashim Shettima.
“The Petitioners shall contend at the trial that the purported sponsorship of the 2nd and 3rd Respondents by the 4th Respondent was rendered invalid by reason of the 3rd Respondent knowingly allowing himself to be nominated as the Vice Presidential Candidate whilst he was still a Senatorial Candidate for the Bomo Central Constituency. The Petitioners shall further contend that for this reason, the votes purportedly recorded for the 2nd Respondent at the contested Presidential election were/are wasted votes and ought to be disregarded,” the suit read.
Obi’s lead lawyer, Livy Uzoukwu also argued that the president-elect “was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the time of the election.”
He contends that Tinubu was declared winner of the election without securing 25% in the FCT, Obi, and the Labour Party want the tribunal to determine “that the 2nd Respondent (Tinubu) having failed to score one-quarter of the votes cast at the Presidential Election in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, was not entitled to be declared and returned as the winner of the presidential election held on 25 February 2023.”
Obi and his Party also prayed the court to order the cancellation of the February 25 presidential election.
In addition to the cancellation of the election, the LP candidate asked the court to compel INEC to conduct a fresh election.
Obi prayed the tribunal to make an order that will ensure Tinubu and his running mate, Shettima do not participate in the fresh election.
Election disputes take months to be resolved in Nigeria, despite the constitution stipulating that they should be concluded, where possible before a candidate is sworn into office.
This year’s election was the tightest presidential race since the end of military rule in 1999, but international observers said it lacked transparency and there were operational failures.
Obi also contends on other irregularities such as that total votes announced in 13 states (most of which Tinubu won exceeded total no of accredited voters.
Also, certified copies PU results INEC provided shows Obi won Rivers and Benue if properly collated.
And that Obi’s actual votes in 18 thousand PUs were suppressed where INEC deliberately uploaded blurred results from those units. He insists that when his actual votes are added, he had the most votes.
Obi alleges, too, that INEC doesn’t have required ECBA and EC8B forms for Rivers, Bayelsa, and Benue, that a substantial number of unlawful votes were added to BAT.
Also, the reoccurring theme in the case is that INEC violated the law by not uploading results from the polling units.
The other sub reoccurring theme is that INEC failed to completely honor the order of the court to provide them with key election documents in most of the states requested. They are also praying on the court to mandate INEC to provide other requested data.