The Presidential Election Petitions Court, PEPC sitting in Abuja was on Wednesday afternoon demolishing the arguments brought by Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi to remove President Bola Tinubu from office after it declared that the president was not convicted in the United States and that he did not need to win 25% of the votes in the FCT to be declared president.
The five-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, while delivering judgement on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, ruled that no record of criminal arrest or conviction was established against Tinubu by the petitioners (LP and Obi).
The judge said Tinubu’s candidacy in the February 25, 2023, presidential election cannot be disqualified on the grounds of forfeiture of $460,000 said to be proceeds of drug trafficking in U.S.
Besides the claim that Tinubu was not convicted, the PEPC has also said that scoring 25 percent was not a constitutional requirement to become president of Nigeria.
The Justice Tsammani-led panel, said the voters in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja were equal to every other voter in the states in Nigeria, hence, Abuja had no special status.
The Labour Party (LP) and the PDP presidential candidates had deposed that the constitution required that a candidate had to win two-thirds of the states and the FCT to be declared winner of the presidential election.
Before then, the PEPC had dismissed the claim of massive rigging of the election as claimed by Obi on the claim that there were no specific examples cited.
The PEPC said that Obi’s claim of widespread poll irregularities in the February 25, 2023 election that brought in President Bola Tinubu was generic and not specific and therefore was unproven just as the claim that he was not convicted in the USA.
