LP, Obi adopt final address, as PEPT reserves judgement
Labour Party and its candidate in the February 25 election Peter Obi, Tuesday, adopted their final addresses at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) sitting at the Court of Appeal headquarters in Abuja reserved judgement till a later date.
The court had also taken the same position in its ruling on the adoption of final address by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, as it opted to notify the two petitioners of its judgement on a date to be communicated to them.
Ruling on the LP/Obi petitions, the court reserved judgment in the petition seeking to nullify the declaration of President Bola Tinubu as winner of the February 25 presidential election.
Chairman of the Tribunal, Justice Simon Tsammani, while reserving judgment, said that the date of its delivery would be communicated to parties in the dispute.
The petitioner, Mr. Peter Obi, through his Counsel Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of giving blurred and blank certified copies of results to them.
Uzoukwu said that the petitioners have proven their petition, as the respondents failed to defend themselves on the blurred results.
He insisted that Tinubu be disqualified on the strength of the American Court judgment where he was made to forfeit $460,000 (four hundred and sixty thousand dollars) on narcotics and money laundering-related offences.
However, counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi SAN urged the Court to disregard Obi’s petition, as the petition is ambitious and lacks merit.
On the issue of having 25 per cent in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Fagbemi said the FCT does not enjoy special status as far as election is concerned.
For his part, counsel to President Tinubu, Mr. Wole Olanipekun, SAN, canvassed that the petition be dismissed because the complaints of Obi and the Labour Party are lacking in merit.
He said that uploading results to the IREV is not part of the process of collation of results, as collation was done physically at the unit levels.
He noted that the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV) was just for public view and not for collation of election results.
Olanipekun insisted that Obi was not even a member of the Labour Party based on the evidence provided in court and urged the court to dismiss the petition in its entirety.
On its part, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) through its counsel, Abubakar Mahmood, SAN, asked the court to dismiss the petition by Obi and the LP on the ground that the petitioners did not prove the allegations of malpractices and non-compliance as contained in the petition as required by law.
Mahmoud informed the court that the INEC used the technology as required, as they were all tested at various levels.
On the issue of glitch, the INEC said the petitioners failed to provide evidence that there was human interference, adding that the glitch was technical in nature.
