Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s (LP) presidential candidate, has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of prejudice and insisted that it should uphold neutrality in the election between candidates.
Obi criticised the electoral body for filing a preliminary objection in favour of the president-elect and candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, in a reply he submitted before the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC.
He pointed out that the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals had already warned INEC not to put itself “in a situation where imputation of partiality in favour of one party against another will be hurled against it.
Obi, who finished third in the February 25 presidential election, recalled that the Supreme Court had stressed in Attorney-General of the Federation v. Abubakar (2007) 10 NWLR (Pto 1041) that the electoral commission “must always remain fair and focused” in addition to adopting neutrality as its guiding principle.
He claims that the first respondent “issued a Notice of Preliminary Objection to contest the apparent inadequacy of the petition, neglecting its function as an electoral arbiter.
According to the global best practise for electoral umpires in national elections, an electoral authority must avoid giving the appearance that it has no regard for impartiality in a campaign between candidates.
“The first respondent has received numerous reminders from the appellate courts that it must maintain its neutrality in election-related actions. The first respondent, however, has remained unaffected by alteration.
Thus, when the first respondent raises a preliminary objection against an election petition as in this case, while donning the garb of a candidate in an election conducted as an umpire, it is not only embarrassing but also a betrayal of its responsibility.
The hope is that INEC will act impartially in all legal proceedings in which election participants contest the results of the elections and refrain from filing petition-objection forms.
The petitioners will request that the first respondent’s Notice of Preliminary Objection be struck out and/or dismissed before, during, or after the Pre-Hearing Session or during the petition hearing,” Obi said.
Also, he referred to INEC’s preliminary objection to the suit he filed to challenge the proclamation of Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election as “misconceived.”
The first respondent’s argument that the reliefs requested in the petition are not appropriate is untrue and stated with blatant disdain for the petition’s clear and simple pleadings.
“The claim that the accusation in paragraph 20(ii) of the petition is flawed and does not disclose a cause of action is wishful thinking,” the first respondent writes in his Notice of Preliminary Objection.
Obi added that the Appeal Court, which would serve as the tribunal for the presidential election dispute, has the necessary jurisdiction to consider and decide the true concerns in the petition. Obi argued further that Tinubu did not win the election with a majority of the valid votes cast.
“The Petitioners further alleged that all parties essential under the law for the Honourable Court to decide the instant petition are present.
“The Honorable Court has the necessary jurisdiction to consider and rule on the substantive issues in this petition,” it states.
Obi further argued that Kashim Shettima, Tinubu’s running mate and incoming vice president, was not legitimately selected to run for the presidential elections.
“As of July 14, 2022, when the third respondent was nominated as the vice presidential candidate of the fourth respondent, the third respondent was still the fourth respondent’s candidate for the Borno Central Senatorial District, and the fourth respondent had not withdrawn his name from consideration.”
For the purposes of a senatorial election, the Borno Central Senatorial District is a Constituency. For the election of the President and Vice President, the entire Federation serves as a constituency.
The submission of the third respondent’s Form EC 9 as the fourth respondent’s vice-presidential candidate did not automatically abrogate his continuing nomination as the senatorial candidate for Borno Central Senatorial District because the status quo continues until there is a valid substitution of a candidate by a political party. He maintained that Section 285(14) of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 Constitution (as amended) is not the basis for the petitioners’ case.
Although LP had agents stationed at various polling places throughout the election, according to Obi, INEC “failed and neglected to give clear copies of the election result in the polling units (Forms EC 8A) to the petitioners’ agents, as the pink copies given to the petitioners’ agents were very faint and unreadable.”
In response to the new issue raised in paragraphs 26 and 27 of the first respondent’s reply, the petitioners asserted that the actual votes obtained at the polling places, as shown in the report incorporated into/pleaded in the petition, show that the petitioners won the majority of the legal votes cast at the election and met the constitutional requirement to be declared the winners of the election.
“In further response to the said allegation by the 1st Respondent, the Petitioners stated that the actual outcome of the election demonstrates that the 2nd Respondent neither won the highest number of legally cast ballots in the election nor satisfied the constitutional requirement, including winning 1/4 of ballots cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to be entitled to be returned or declared as the winner of the Presidential Election.
In fact, according to the 1st respondent’s track record, the 2nd respondent is the first presidential candidate since 1999 to be declared the victor without receiving 25% of the FCT vote.
The illegal declaration of the second respondent as the winner of the presidential election under the hurried conditions that characterised the said declaration is obviously unconstitutional.
“The Petitioners acknowledge the allegations in paragraphs 28, 29, and 30 of the first respondent’s reply, and in response to the newly raised issues, they assert that the use of BVAS for the electronic transmission/upload of the election results from the polling places to the first respondent’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV) is required.
The Petitioners assert that, under the relevant laws and regulations, the proper method for resolving disagreements at the collation is by resorting to the result published on the IReV utilising the BVAS, in response to the issue of “manual collation” raised in paragraph 31 of the first respondent’s reply. The information on the 1st respondent’s IReV Portal (http://www.inecelectionresults.ng) as of the date of filing this reply on April 21, 2023, indicates that out of the 176,846 polling units, the results submitted were in respect of 167,433 polling units, and that the percentage of the uploaded results on the IReV is 94.68%.
“In additional response, the petitioners assert that the first respondent’s IReV is housed on AWS, or the Amazon Cloud Platform, and contains the election result of the election in the polling units (data of the election result) uploaded or stored on the IReV.
“The petitioners will rely on the IReV Server server logs and the AWS Cloud Platform server content during the trial.
“In response to the issues raised in paragraphs 44, 45, and 46 of the First Respondent’s Reply, the Petitioners argue that the only legitimate way to settle disputes about the collation of the election result is to use the uploaded result from the BVAS to the IReV,” Obi wrote in the process he filed with the help of his legal team, which was led by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN.