Peter Obi and his Labour Party (LP) have completed their appeal to the Presidential Election appeal Court (PEPC) disputing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s election. The case, titled CA/PEPC/03/2023, contested the 2023 general election, which elected Tinubu as President of Nigeria on May 29.
The petition’s respondents are the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The petitioners were given three weeks to make their case to the court against the respondents. Originally intending to bring fifty witnesses, the petitioners closed their case on Friday with only thirteen witnesses.
Yunusa Tanko, a member of the LP Situation Room, testified and presented pertinent papers during the proceedings. While being cross-examined by INEC, Tanko informed the court that the results handed to them were unreadable and tampered with.
Tanko also revealed that their party had over 130,000 agents covering the 176,974 polling stations across the country during the election. Tanko stated that the entire election results were being contested owing to continued delays in downloading the results from the IreV system, even four months after the election, when asked about the twelve states won by LP and the position of Atiku Abubakar, who was declared second.
Tanko referred to their expert’s previous testimony on the disputed votes in response to Fagbemi’s question concerning the quantity of illegal votes.
Through the witness, the respondents cited judgements of the Federal High Court in LP vs. INEC (FHC/ABJ/1454/2022) given on January 23, 2023, as evidence.
Following the testimony of another witness, Peter Yari, an ad hoc staff member of INEC, counsel for the petitioners, Uzoukwu, declared the case closed.
The respondents asked for a postponement until July 3, so they could celebrate the forthcoming Sallah festival with their families before presenting their case. According to NAN, the five-member panel, chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani, granted the adjournment and set July 3 as the day for the respondents to begin presenting their case.
