THE All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have asked the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja to dismiss Peter Obi’s petition challenging Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s victory arguing that it lacks merit and therefore a waste of judicial time.
Obi and the Labour Party on whose platform he ran for the presidency are challenging the declaration of Tinubu by INEC as winner of the February 25 presidential polls.
Atiku, Obi and three other candidates along with their political parties are challenging the outcome of the presidential polls over allegations of irregularities, particularly INEC’s failure to upload election results from polling stations in real-time to its IRev portal.
In response to Obi’s claims that the election fell short of the provisions of the Electoral Act, INEC is arguing that it conducted the elections in strict compliance with the constitution and electoral laws and challenged the petitioners to prove the contrary.
But in their separate responses to Obi’s complaint, filed on Monday, April 10, both the APC and INEC said the Labour Party and its presidential candidate’s petition lacked merit.
The APC legal team, led by Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), argued that Obi was not a genuine member of the Labour Party as at the time of the election, stressing that he was instead a member of the PDP as of May 24, 2022, during which the party screened him as one of its presidential aspirants in April 2022.
“The 1st petitioner (Mr Obi) purportedly resigned his membership of Peoples Democratic Party on 24 May 2022 to purportedly join the 2nd petitioner (LP) on 27th May 2022,” the APC contended as it recalled that the Labour Party conducted its presidential primary on May 30, 2022, which purportedly produced Obi as its presidential flag bearer.
Arguing that Obi’s nomination as Labour Party’s presidential candidate breached Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act, the party stated: “The 1st petitioner (Mr Obi) was not a member of the 2nd petitioner (LP) as at the time of his alleged sponsorship. Whereas, by the mandatory provisions of Section 77 (1) (2) and (3) of the Electoral Act 2022, a political party shall maintain a register and shall make such register available to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not later than 30 days before the date fixed for the party primaries, congresses and convention.
“All the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were screened on 29th April, 2022, an exercise in which the 1st petitioner herein participated and was cleared to contest while being a member of the party.
“The 1st petitioner herein resigned his membership of the PDP on Thursday 26th May, 2022 and joined the Labour Party the following day being 27th May, 2022.
“The 2nd petitioner herein conducted its presidential primary on 30th May, 2022 which produced the 1st petitioner as the candidate it intended to sponsor in the general election.”
According to the APC, Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act mandates a political party to submit its membership register to the electoral umpire 30 days before their presidential primary election and that the failure of the Labour Party to submit Mr Obi’s name to INEC 30 days before primaries makes him unqualified to stand for election under the party.
APC asserted that Obi as at 30 April, 2022, was still a member of the PDP and his name was not and could not have been in the register of members submitted by the Labour Party to INEC.
