The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal yesterday in Abuja ruled that the petition of the Labour Partys presidential candidate, Peter Obi was greatly incompetent and defective beyond repair.
The Tribunal, in a ruling on several objections against the petition delivered by Justice Abba Mohammed, struck out several paragraphs of the petition for being vague, incompetent, inconsistent, nebulous and self-contradictory. In the ruling, Obis petition was said to have raised several general allegations of malpractices, irregularities and corruption without being specific as required by law.
The Tribunal held that while Obi claimed to have scored the highest number of lawful votes in the February 25 presidential election, he failed completely to state or specify the number of the lawful votes he claimed to have won. Justice Mohammed said to worsen the situation, the Labour Partys presidential candidate pleaded for a report of forensic experts but failed to file the report along with the petition or serve the same on the respondents in the petition.
Besides, Justice Mohammed said Obis claim that his votes were suppressed in favour of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), was vague because he failed to give out any figure of votes to establish the claim.
The Tribunal also held that Obis allegations that votes credited to Tinubu were inflated was untenable because he never mentioned the number of the votes dashed to Tinubu. On the allegations of corrupt practices, Justice Mohammed stated that it is not every allegation of corruption that is regarded as corrupt practices, adding that averments in a pleading must be specific and not general as done by Obi.
The Tribunal further held that Obi did not prove the particular polling units where elections did not take place and that he also failed to specify particulars of polling units where the complainants of irregularities were alleged.
