In his reply to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s preliminary objection against his petition at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal Court in Abuja, the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has accused the electoral umpire for not maintaining neutrality in the case.
INEC in its objection filed by A.B Mahmoud
SAN, had disagreed with Obi’s assertion that the 2023 presidential election
results ought to be transmitted electronically through the Bimodal Voter
Accreditation System (BVAS) machine to a public result viewing portal known as
the IReV.
INEC had also countered Obi’s submission that
Tinubu, having not scored 25% of votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory,
does not qualify to be declared winner of the 2023 polls in line with Section
134 of the 1999 Constitution.
The section reads: “(1) A candidate for an
election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected,
where there being only two candidates for the election – (a) he has the
majority of votes cast at the election; and (b) he has not less than
one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of
all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
In FCT, Obi scored 281,717 votes to defeat
Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar who had 90,902 and 74,199 votes, respectively (less
than 25%).
But INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud SAN, had
told the court that “FCT has no special constitutional status over and above
the other 36 states of the federation to require a candidate in the
presidential election to obtain at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in the
FCT before being declared winner of the presidential election.”
Meanwhile, the electoral umpire admitted that
while it is true that collation officers are required to ascertain that the
number of accredited voters matches the number captured in the BVAS and that the
votes of parties correspond with the result electronically transmitted directly
from the polling units before collation of results, it’s collation officers are
allowed by law to use INEC’s copy of the results from the polling unit in the
event that no results have been electronically transmitted from a polling unit.
In his response before the court, Obi took a
swipe at INEC, accusing it of forgetting its role as an impartial umpire.
“INEC, forgetting its role as an electoral
umpire, gave a notice of preliminary objection to challenge the alleged
incompetence of the petition.
“The global best practice for electoral
umpires in national elections is that an electoral umpire must avoid creating
the impression that it has no respect for neutrality in an electoral contest
between candidates,” Obi’s reply stated.
Obi’s legal team further contended that
previous rulings and decisions of the Court of Appeal repeatedly admonished
INEC to remain neutral in electoral proceedings, adding that it amounts to
“embarrassment” for INEC to “adorn the garb of a contestant” in an election it
conducted.
In respect to INEC’s argument that 25%
percent votes from FCT is not a requirement in 2023 presidential election,
Obi’s team maintained that the electoral umpire’s contention is “not true” and
that the 1999 constitution makes it mandatory.
Regarding the mode of collation and result
declaration, Obi cited a Federal High Court judgment that held that the BVAS
is “core” to the election.
“It is not true that INEC compared the
results of the election with any hard copies and counter-part copies issued to
Nigeria Police and the political party agents as claimed in paragraph 73 of the
1st Respondent’s (INEC) reply,” Obi’s team submitted.
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