Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, has filed an appeal at the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) affirming President Bola Tinubu’s election earlier this month.
Recall that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has similarly filed his appeal to challenge the PEPC’s verdict delivered on 6 September.
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The appellants had 14 days from the date of judgement to file their appeal to challenge the verdict at the Supreme Court. The 14 days period ends on Wednesday.
Mr Obi and Atiku had filed separate petitions at the PEPC accusing Nigeria’s electoral umpire, INEC, and Mr Tinubu of electoral malpractices. They contested Mr Tinubu’s qualification to stand for election and begged the PEPC to set aside the election.
But the court, in its decision, held that they failed to substantiate their claims of electoral fraud against INEC and the president.
Another political party, the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), filed the third petition alleging improper nomination of Mr Tinubu’s running mate and incumbent Vice President Kashim Shettima. The case was similarly dismissed by the court, but the party has not indicated any intention to pursue an appeal against the verdict.
In his notice of appeal dated 19 September, Mr Obi’s lead counsel, Livy Uzoukwu, predicated his client’s appeal to the Supreme Court on 51 grounds.
In one of the grounds, Mr Uzoukwu told the Supreme Court that the five-member panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court led by Haruna Tsammani “erred in law and thereby reached a wrong conclusion” when it dismissed Mr Obi’s suit.
Mr Uzoukwu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), faulted the presidential election court’s evaluation of Mr Obi’s evidence. He said the court erroneously ruled that Mr Obi’s case failed to establish the polling stations where electoral malpractices took place during the February presidential election.
The lawyer also said the lower court’s conclusions caused “grave miscarriage of justice” when it held that Mr Obi did not identify the specific number of votes he polled at polling units where he accused INEC and Mr Tinubu of suppression of votes.
The appellant’s lawyer urged the Supreme Court to determine if the presidential election court did not err in law when it based its reasons on the First Schedule of the Electoral Act 2022 to expunge Mr Obi’s witnesses’ statements on oath from the court’s records.