By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital has ruled that the Labour Party (LP)’s petition of irregularities in the 2023 presidential election was generic and could not be proved.
The party has challenged the election of the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu in the February presidential election, insisting that the electioneering process that pronounced him the country’s President was marred by irregularities.
“Pleading must set out material facts and particulars. In the instant petition, there was no effort to prove specific allegations, particulars of complaints,” the Tribunal ruled on Wednesday in Abuja.
“The law is clear that where someone alleges irregularities in a particular polling unit, such person must prove the particular irregularities in that polling unit before that petition can succeed”, the Tribunal added.
According to the Tribunal, the petitioners did not prove the particular polling units where the election did not take place nor did they specify particulars of polling units where there are alleged complainants of irregularities.
“It was only in one instance that figures were given of alleged suppressed votes and we all know that elections are about figures,” it maintained.
Labour Party accused the electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of reducing its scores and adding same to All Progressives Congress (APC)’s votes.
But the court said the Labour Party, which had Mr. Peter Obi as its presidential candidate failed to supply particulars of what they actually scored before the said reductions, neither did they supply the polling units where it happened.
