Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the February 25 Nigerian Presidential election, has filed a petition challenging the victory of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Nigeria’s President-elect. Obi, who scored 6,101,533 votes against the 8,794,726 votes polled by Tinubu, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), made five-ground prayers in his petition, filed before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting at the Court of Appeal, Abuja. The petition, jointly filed by Obi and the Labour Party as co-petitioners, joined the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu, Shettima Kashim (Vice President-elect), and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the respondents.
Obi’s five-ground prayers include a request to cancel the election and conduct a fresh poll, as well as his allegation that Tinubu and Shettima were not qualified to contest the election. Specifically, Obi asked the court to hold that at the time of the presidential election held on 25 February, 2023, Messrs Tinubu and Shettima were not qualified to contest the election. He also requested that the court determines that all the votes recorded for Mr. Tinubu in the election are wasted votes, owing to the non-qualification of the President-elect and Mr. Shettima. Additionally, he asked the court to determine that the 2nd Respondent (Mr. 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. Finally, Obi prayed the tribunal to make an order cancelling the election and compelling the 1st respondent (INEC) to conduct a fresh election at which the 2nd Respondent (Tinubu), 3rd respondent (Shettima) and 4th respondent (APC) shall not participate.
