The candidate of Nigeria's Labour Party, Peter Obi, sits in line with his wife Margaret Obi, left, as he waits to cast his vote during the presidential elections on Saturday, February 25, 2023 in Agulu, Nigeria. The voters in Africa's most populous nation are going to the polls Saturday to choose a new president, following the second and final term of incumbent Muhammadu Buhari. Peter Obi, a candidate for the Labor Party who finished third in the presidential race last month, is asking the court to declare him the winner and nullify Bola Tinubu's victory. According to Labor Party spokesman Yunusa Tanko, the ruling party's candidate wasn't qualified to participate because he didn't meet the minimum educational requirement.
Yunusa told The AP that the candidate of the ruling party did not meet the minimum threshold to participate in the election, which has to do with the presentation of his primary school certificate. Our prayers are for the disqualification of Tinubu and the announcement of our candidate as the winner of the February 25 election. He said that the party would try to prove in court that Obi won the highest number of votes in the election.
Last month, Nigeria s Independent National Electoral Commission declared Tinubu the winner with 37% of the vote, beating the main opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who won 29%.
Obi finished third with 25% in a two-horse race. Abubakar s party said it would file a separate petition that would try to nullify Tinubu's victory.
If the process was heavily flawed as we now know, what will you talk about? Paul Ibe, a spokesman for Abubakar, said that we should be concerned more about the flawed process.
Nigeria s electoral law says that only if the electoral body doesn't follow the law and acts in ways that could have changed the result, an election can be invalidated. The Supreme Court has never overturned any of the Nigerian presidential election results. The court challenge is unique, according to lawyers, because new provisions that introduced the use of technology during the election have resulted in a new legal provision. Tanko said that the electoral body didn't adhere to the new requirements.
Obi's petition marks the beginning of a court challenge to Tinubu's victory, with his party expected to gather evidence in the coming months. It's usually a long process and took seven months in 2019 when the courts rejected a similar challenge.
The petition came after the country's governor's election in which the ruling party retained the majority of states, winning 15, including the commercial hub of Lagos. The Peoples Democratic Party, the main opposition party, won eight states.