In a long judgement spanning over four hours delivered by Justice Haruna Tsammani, several significant issues raised in Peter Obi’s case were conclusively addressed and dismissed, News About Nigeria gathered.
Firstly, the allegation of double nomination against Vice-President Kashim Shettima was debunked as false. The tribunal ruled that Shettima’s nomination was not in violation of any electoral laws.
Secondly, it was affirmed that President Bola Tinubu was qualified to contest the February 25 election, dispelling any doubts about his eligibility.
Thirdly, the tribunal found that 10 out of the 13 witnesses presented by Peter Obi were not competent to testify, as they were not frontloaded in compliance with the law.
Additionally, the European Union (EU) report on the outcome of the 2023 election was declared inadmissible as it needed to be tendered by the EU, the author of the document.
Furthermore, reports presented by Obi’s expert witnesses were deemed useless by the tribunal.
The U.S. court’s forfeiture of Tinubu’s $460,000 was clarified as not disqualifying him from running for the presidency.
Regarding INEC’s failure to upload copies of polling unit results to IReV real-time, the tribunal ruled that this did not invalidate the election and emphasised that INEC is not bound to transmit election results electronically.
The tribunal also found no evidence to suggest that INEC deliberately refused to upload polling unit results to manipulate them.
Lastly, Peter Obi’s allegations of various electoral malpractices, including suppression of votes, wrong computation, manipulation and corrupt practices, were dismissed due to a lack of solid evidence.
The insistence that Tinubu must win 25 per cent of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was also deemed a parochial and fallacious interpretation of the Nigerian constitution.
