How Peter Obi Records First Legal Victory Against Tinubu
By Simeon OSAJIE
The presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) in the February 25, presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi on Friday successfully convinced the Court of Appeal to grant him access to all sensitivbe materials cdeployed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of the 2023 Presidential Election which held February 25, 2023.
The appellate court, which will sit as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, equally ordered the electoral body to also grant the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar access to the election materials.
A panel of the appellate court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh made the orders after it heard two separate ex-parte applications the two aggrieved presidential candidates (Mr. Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar) filed alongside their political parties.
It was earlier reported that cited as respondents in the matter were INEC, the acclaimed winner of the presidential election, Bola Tinubu, as well as his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Both applications were predicated on Section146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, Paragraph 47 (1, 2 &3) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022, as well as under the inherent jurisdiction of the Court as referenced by Section 6 (6) A & B of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
In his application, on behalf of LP presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, the team of lawyers led by Mr. Alex Ejesieme (SAN), sought six principal reliefs, Atiku’s lawyer, Mr. Adedamola Faloku, and sought seven prayers from the tribunal.
Specifically, the applicants urged the court to compel INEC to allow them to obtain documents in its custody that were used for the presidential election.
It will be recalled that INEC had declared Tinubu of the APC as the winner of the presidential poll, ahead of 17 other candidates that contested the election.
According to INEC, Tinubu scored a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku who polled a total of 6,984,520 votes and Obi of the LP, who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.
Both PDP and LP had since rejected the outcome of the election and vowed to challenge it in court.
