Update: Tribunal dismisses Tinubu’s request to disqualify Peter Obi’s candidacy

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In a recent update, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT has dismissed requests by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to disqualify the Labour Party, LP’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi.

Tinubu, while responding to petitions against him at the tribunal, prayed the court to disqualify Mr Obi on grounds of party irregularities stating that Obi defected from the PDP and only joined the Labour Party less than 30 days before his emergence as the candidate of the party in the 2023 presidential election.

The APC argued that such act was illegal and presented the Labour Party’s candidate unfit to contend the race.

However, in a ruling by Justice Abba Mohammed, the Labour Party’s nomination of Peter Obi as it’s flagbearer at the 2023 presidential elections was valid and legal.

The jury held that Tinubu’s request lacked competence to call for Obi’s disqualification as the decision of who emerges as a candidate of a political party is an “internal affair” of the party.

The tribunal described Tinubu’s argument over Obi’s defection from PDP to the Labour Party and the narratives surrounding it as an act of interloping and interfering with the internal affairs of another party.

It thus dismissed Tinubu’s reply which demanded that Obi should be disqualified as null and void and lacking in merit.

In a related development, the PEPT has struck out about 17 paragraphs from the petition brought before it by Peter Obi and the Labour Party stating that the paragraphs contain “vague and generic allegations.”

Justice Abba Mohammed who read the lead judgment, held that the petitioners failed to show which polling units the malpractices alleged occurred; the number of votes affected; and their polling unit agents who reported the alleged irregularities, as well as malpractices, among others.

Recall that the petitioners alleged that there were irregularities witnessed at the 2023 polls and stated that they would rely on spreadsheets, inspection reports and forensic analysis filed with the petition during the trial.