The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has voided the petitions being filed by Peter Obi and the LP, on the one hand, and Atiku and the PDP on the other, labeling them ‘ungrantable’.
The electoral umpire asked the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to reject the prayers, which among others seek the declaration of Obi as winner of the February 25 poll.
INEC, the 1st respondent, stated this in the reply filed by its lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), at the PEPC’s Secretariat, in Abuja on April 10.
The commission prayed the court to either “dismiss or strike out the petition for being grossly incompetent, abusive, vague, nebulous, generic, general, non-specific, ambiguous, equivocal, hypothetical and academic.”
In their petition marked: CA/PEPC/03/2023 filed by lead counsel, Livy Ozoukwu, Obi and the LP are of the view that Tinubu “was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the time of the election.”
Obi and the LP, who claimed that there was rigging in 11 states, alleged that INEC violated its regulations when it announced the results when the totality of the polling unit results was yet to be fully scanned, uploaded and transmitted electronically as required by the Electoral Act.
Listed as respondents in the petition are INEC, Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and the APC.
But in its response, INEC argued that the grounds on which the petition was based were defective, having regard to the vague and imprecise averments supporting the said grounds.
INEC noted that, in relation to their claim of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 and corrupt practices, the petitioners failed to disclose a reasonable cause of action by their failure to plead specific particulars and figures as to how the alleged non-compliance, which they claimed substantially, affected the results of the election.
The commission argued that the petitioners’ ground, hinged on their claim that Tinubu was not elected by majority of lawful votes cast, is defective, owing to their failure to plead the alleged unlawful votes to be deducted and/or lawful votes to be credited to the petitioners.
INEC said that the petitioners’ prayer for the tribunal to declare that Obi scored majority of lawful votes cast at the election and be declared winner was equally defective in view of the petitioners’ “failure to join necessary parties and for lack of requisite particulars and pleading to support same.”