Victor EzejaPresidential Election Petition Court on Wednesday ruled that the Labour Party and its Presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi failed to prove their allegation of substantial noncompliance with the Electoral Act by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The five-man panel of justices led by Justice Haruna held that Obi and his party failed to prove that INEC deliberately refused to promptly upload polling unit results to its Results Viewing Portal (IReV) in order to manipulate the results in favour of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Obi and his party had also alleged that there was overvoting, and inflation of votes in favour of the APC’s Tinubu while results of votes meant to be theirs were suppressed, adding that the elections were invalid by reason of corrupt practices.
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In trying to substantiate their claims, the petitioner alleged that INEC uploaded fictitious and incorrect votes in Rivers and Benue States, leading to massive misrepresentation. They asserted that if things were done rightly, they would have won massively in those states.
The tribunal held that apart from figures cited for those two states, the petitioner failed to substantially prove the allegations.
“The petitioner made the allegation of non-compliance a substantial part of their case. By the provisions of Section 135(2) of the Electoral Act, they are required to show how such noncompliance substantially affected them. If they fail to show same, the petition fails.”
It concluded on this part that “The proof must be beyond reasonable doubt. The petitioner must produce two sets of results, one genuine, one false.”
On the argument about the mode of transmission of election results, the tribunal held that INEC is at liberty to choose the mode suitable to it at the point of election.
The tribunal consequently dismissed the petitioner’s argument that Tinubu’s election be annulled on the basis of the “failure” of INEC to upload election results on the IReV portal in real-time.
“There is no provision for the electronic transmission of election results in the Electoral Act 2022. It is at best optional,” Justice Tsammani stated.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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