AKINWALE ABOLUWADE
As judgment is being delivered on Peter Obi’s petition challenging the declaration of President Bola Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 election, the presidential election petition court has struck out some paragraphs of the case which alleged irregularities and corruption.
The tribunal’s decision was premised on the fact that the claims were “vague, imprecise, nebulous and failed to meet the requirements of pleadings.”
Obi, a former Anambra State governor and his party, Labour Party, are complainants in the petition marked CA/PEPC/03/2023, challenging the credibility of the election that brought Tinubu to power, while respondents in the petition are the Independent National Electoral Commission, President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima and All Progressives Congress.
Obi and LP challenged Tinubu’s victory in the presidential election.
A member of the tribunal’s five-member panel, Justice Abba Mohammed, is presently reading the lead judgment citing some preliminary motions challenging the competence of some aspects of the petition.
Mohammed, ruling in the preliminary objections filed by INEC, Tinubu and APC, held that averments must not leave room for confusion or ambiguity.
He stated that the aim of pleadings were to avail respondents of the facts of the case so as to prepare adequately.
On the alleged malpractice in over 500 polling units, it held that the petitioners should have been specific rather than alleging that there were rigging in some polling units or collation centers.
Mohammed held that “petitioners failed to specify polling units where anomalies occurred or where agents complained of alleged malpractice and irregularities,” noting that “Averments must not be general but specific.”
According to the court, of the over 18, 000 polling units where the petitioners alleged that INEC uploaded “blurred results” unto the INEC Results Viewing Portals, not one polling unit was cited to concretize the claim.
Mohammed held that “They did not specify polling units where election results were not uploaded” or where scores attributed to them was reduced or added to Tinubu’s.
“They did not show the majority of votes they claimed they had scored.” Rather, it held that petitioners only made generic allegations of irregularities and malpractice.
He noted that the petitioners relied on a spreadsheet analysis, inspection results and experts reports, saying that such documents should have been served on the respondents in order to enable them to respond accordingly.
Granting the request of the petitioners to strike out the affected paragraphs, the court held that “The spreadsheet report, inspection results and experts reports were not served but only listed as documents to be relied on in adjudicating the petition.”
The tribunal then delved into other parts of Obi’s petition.
