The Presidential Election Petitions Court issued a ruling on Wednesday regarding the case brought by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi. The court found that they failed to establish that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deliberately delayed the upload of polling unit results to its Results Viewing Portal (IReV) with the intention of manipulating the results in favor of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“The petitioner emphasized the allegation of non-compliance as a significant aspect of their case. According to Section 135(2) of the Electoral Act, they were obligated to demonstrate how this non-compliance had a substantial impact on their position. Failing to do so led to the dismissal of the petition.”
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The petitioner also raised concerns about result suppression, overvoting, and vote inflation, contending that these irregularities rendered the elections invalid due to corrupt practices.
In the cases of Rivers and Benue states, the petitioner alleged that INEC had engaged in substantial misrepresentation by uploading fictitious and inaccurate vote counts. They argued that had the proper procedures been followed, they would have secured a resounding victory in those states.
The Tribunal, however, concluded that the allegations in these two states were the only ones with substantive evidence. The court stressed that for other allegations, specific details must be provided, and the burden of proof must be beyond a reasonable doubt. In such cases, the petitioner must present two sets of results—one genuine and one false—as evidence.
