Presidential election: Tinubu’s victory not God’s will – Peter Obi

 

 

Obiora Ifoh, Abuja

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi has said the victory of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu is not the will of God.

Obi said God’s wish was for the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to conduct a credible, free and fair election.

Featuring on Arise Television’s Morning Show on Monday.

Asked if he would accept Tinubu’s victory as the wish of God as some religious leaders claimed, Obi said: “What they are actually preaching is the problem of Nigeria. The problem of Nigeria is accepting wrongdoing and what is unacceptable.

“That is using God’s name in vain. That is not what God is saying. God said do not use my name in vain.“So, what they are saying is not God’s wish, it is not God’s plan for Nigeria.

“Pastors are preaching the problem of Nigeria; it’s not God’s wish for Nigeria. Is it God’s wish that we don’t have electricity, a mortality rate?

“We have clear laws about the conduct of the election, it’s not God’s wish that we do the wrong thing. We want God’s wish to be truly God’s wish.

“Is it God’s wish that we steal or conduct the wrong election?”

However, Aftermath of the February 25, presidential election, the legal team of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi has commenced inspection of the various materials used during the election.

Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, also assured the Labour Party, LP’s 60 man legal team led by Dr. Levy Uzoukwu (SAN) of the Commission’s readiness to provide all documents the party requested to prosecute its case at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.

 

At a meeting between the legal team and INEC at the commission’s headquarters on Monday, Yakubu said the Commission would also meet with its Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, in the states to work out modalities for the inspection of materials in the states.

“INEC has nothing to hide. Documents available at the headquarters will be given immediately.

“We are meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners today and we will discuss how other documents at the state level could also be made available to you speedily.

“I want to assure you that the Commission will not hide any document from anybody and will make available any document that they have requested.

There are two categories of documents those that are in possession of the headquarters of INEC, we will easily make these documents available to you. Specifically the EC8Ds from the states and the ECD A, which is the collation at the national collection centre by the commission itself. The EC8E, the declaration, so many, a total of, I think 39 documents, this we can easily certify and give you almost immediately.

As for other documents that we are asking for they are at state level, so we need to work out the schedule so that we know when your team is going to which state and on which date so that we can easily facilitate not just certification of documents, but also the inspection that you requested for each of these documents.

“The other one is accreditation data from the back end. This will also be made available to you. Remember that the accreditation data covers over 176,000 polling units. We have to print them physically certify them, and give them to you ,so the tall and short of what I’m saying is that you will get this document speedily. They will also make arrangements and notify our resident electoral Commissioner of your intended visit so that these documents will be made available to you those that are at the level, including access to inspection of any category of materials.”

The Labour Party’s legal team was at the INEC headquarters to discuss modalities for obtaining the documents.

According to Dr Uzoukwu, “We are here because we have not received any electoral stocks for inspection on behalf of our clients, and as you all know, election petition is time sensitive. We have 21 days to file a petition on behalf of our clients. Out of that 21 days we probably have about 10 days to go and up till now we have not received any documents.

“We have written to INEC requesting for a documents apart from that. The Court of Appeal made an order on the March 3, to INEC to release those documents to us but we haven’t received any hence we requested for a meeting with the chairman of the commission.”

The Senior Advocate also that if their demands are not met by INEC, the consequences maybe far reaching.

He said, “That will be a national calamity. Why do I say that? Not making the documents available will create the impression that INEC is deliberately frustrating us. That’s just the impression it will create to make sure that we cannot prosecute this petition. But listening to the chairman a short while ago and all assurances, I want to give him or we want to give him the benefit of the doubt that we will get some of them today.

 

“We are very much bothered and I made that point when we met with the chairman that not only that our clients are bothered and agitated but also we members of the legal council are bothered, members of Labour Party are bothered, their supporters are bothered and restive.

“In fact, it has taken a lot to calm them down to exercise patience that we are going to get the documents because the court of the land has ordered the documents to be given to us.”

ObiDatti campaign spokesperson,  Chief Tanko Yunusa also said the outcome of the meeting will determine if the planned picketing of INEC offices will continue.

“Remember we made a press conference citing that we will not fail to mobilise our members to come out to march on the streets of INEC and offices of INEC nationwide. And graciously the chairman of INEC haven read that particular statement has granted this opportunity to come into his office and liaise with him and he has assured the team of lawyers that they are going to present this documents.

“So we want to wait and see the responses of our legal team. It is the legal team that will give us the marching order. When they are satisfied with what they’ve received from INEC so that our members nationwide and worldwide will be satisfied that we are doing our job and they are ready to prosecute this case accordingly.”

 

Recall that the party had earlier obtained a court judgement directing the electoral umpire to allow it inspect the materials used for the February 25 polls.

 

Also, the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, last Wednesday, gave INEC the nod to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, it used for the presidential election.

Also, The Independent National Electoral Commission has assured the Labour Party’s legal team that it will provide all the documents the party has requested for its ongoing suit against the commission and the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.

 

The chairman of the electoral body, Mahmood Yakubu, gave the assurance when Labour Party’s legal head, Dr Livy Uzoukwu, led a 60-man legal team to a meeting with representatives of INEC in Abuja on Monday to discuss modalities for obtaining the documents.

 

Saying the commission has nothing to hide, Yakubu further assured that Resident Electoral Commissioners at the state level would also make available necessary documents to the party speedily.

 

He said, “INEC has nothing to hide. Documents available at the HQ will be given immediately. We are meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners today and we will discuss how other documents at the state level could also be made available to you speedily.”

Recall that INEC had come under fire for its failure to upload the results of the presidential election from all polling units across the federation to its Results Viewing Portal on election day.

Consequently, party agents of the Labour Party, the Peoples Democratic Party and some others, had staged a walkout from the National Collation Centre in Abuja in protest against the collation and results announced by the commission.

Ignoring the agitation of the opposition parties, INEC in the early hours of Wednesday, March 1, 2023, declared Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, President-elect and winner of the election. Tinubu polled about 8.8 million votes ahead of his rivals in the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, who polled 6.9 million votes and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who polled 6.1 million votes.

Dissatisfied with the election results and declaration, the Labour Party had approached the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to grant it permission to inspect the election materials used by the commission during the February 25 polls, including the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, which was the major technology deployed during the polls to enhance a free and free process.

 

However, INEC, in a countersuit, prayed the court to grant it permission to reconfigure the BVAS ahead of the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections.

 

Granting the electoral body permission to reconfigure the BVAS used in the presidential election, the commission has however assured the Labour Party that the information on the BVAS would be backed up for their inspection and has now promised that all documents requested by the party will be made readily available to the party