The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, currently convened in Abuja, has made a significant assessment of the petition put forth by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, against President Bola Tinubu. The tribunal has expressed that the entire petition presented by the petitioners relied heavily on rhetoric rather than concrete evidence.
Among the claims made by the petitioners were allegations of the nullification of President Tinubu’s victory in the presidential election due to his failure to secure 25 percent of the vote in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), assertions of Tinubu’s incompetence to contest the election due to his forfeiture case in the United States, and allegations of INEC’s failure to transmit results to Irev, among others.
The five-member panel, presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, while delivering their ruling, dismissed the issues raised in the petitions. Justice Tsammani, in particular, described the argument that President Tinubu should not have been declared the winner because he did not achieve 25 percent of the vote in the FCT as fallacious and incredibly ridiculous.
This ruling by the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal addresses some of the key contentions in the petition and underscores the importance of substantiated claims in legal proceedings.