Obi’s petition against Tinubu incompetent, defective beyond repair – Tribunal
The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on Wednesday in
Abuja ruled that the petition of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate,
Peter Gregory Obi was greatly incompetent and defective beyond repairs.
The Tribunal in a ruling on several objections against the
petition struck out several paragraphs of the petition for being vague,
incompetent, inconsistent, nebulous and self contradictory.
In the ruling delivered by Justice Abba Mohammed, Obi’s
petition was said to have raised several general allegations of malpractices,
irregularities, corruption without being specific as required by law.
The Tribunal held that while Obi claimed to have scored the
highest number of lawful votes in the February 25 presidential election, he
failed completely to state or specify the number of the lawful votes he claimed
to have won.
Justice Mohammed said to worsen the situation, the Labour
Party’s presidential candidate pleaded report of forensic experts but failed to
file the report along with the petition or serve same on the respondents in the
petition.
Besides, Justice Mohammed said Obi’s claim that his votes
were suppressed in favour of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC,
was vague because he failed to give out any figure of votes to establish the
claim.
The Tribunal also held that Obi’s allegations that votes
credited to Tinubu were inflated was untenable because he never mentioned the
number of the votes dashed to Tinubu.
On the allegations of corrupt practices, Justice Mohammed
stated that it is not every allegation of corruption that is regarded as
corrupt practices, adding that averments in a pleading must be specific and not
general as done by Obi.
“The Law is very clear that where someone alleged
irregularities in a particular polling unit, as in the instant petition, such a
person must prove the particular irregularities in that poling unit for him to
succeed in his petition,” it held.
The Tribunal also held that Obi did not prove the particular
polling units where elections did not take place and that he also failed to
specify particulars of polling units where the complainants of irregularities
were alleged
Details later…
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