According to the Premium Times, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) contended that Peter Obi, the presidential aspirant of the Labour Party, did not demonstrate how he obtained the majority of valid votes in the presidential election held on February 25.
At the end of the trial, the court’s five-member panel, led by Haruna Tsammani, directed the involved parties to exchange their concluding arguments.
In its concluding statement, INEC, represented by its chief attorney, Abubakar Mahmoud, declared that Mr. Obi’s petition is devoid of substance.
In response to the accusations of Mr. Shettima’s dual nomination, Mr. Mahmoud, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), stated that the APC had officially revoked his candidacy for the Borno Central Senatorial District in a letter dated July 6, 2022.
This letter was received by INEC on July 13, 2022, with the plan of paving the way for his nomination as Mr. Tinubu’s running mate. Mr. Mahmoud clarified that Mr. Shettima’s voluntary withdrawal occurred before his selection as Mr. Tinubu’s vice presidential candidate.
Furthermore, when discussing the accusation of Mr. Tinubu’s purported involvement in drug trafficking in the United States, Mr. Mahmoud stated, “No criminal charges, verdict, or conviction exists to substantiate the claim of a criminal conviction or asset forfeiture.”
He referred to a letter presented as evidence by the US government during the defense. He further emphasized that “the alleged foreign court order of asset forfeiture is not officially recognized in Nigeria and therefore cannot be enforced.”
Mr. Mahmoud cited Mr. Tinubu’s defense in the case, stating that the forfeiture order issued by Judge John Nordberg of a United States District Court on October 4, 1993, “is indeed more than 20 years old.”
Regarding the issue of INEC’s failure to promptly upload the polling unit results of the presidential election to its Result View Portal on February 25, Mr. Mahmoud explained that the electoral officers encountered difficulties in transmitting the result images to the IReV portal.
This was due to a technical malfunction in the e-transmission application hosted by Amazon Web Services. However, he reassured the court that this technical issue was resolved eventually.
In response to Mr. Obi’s argument that Mr. Tinubu should not be declared the victor of the election due to his failure to obtain 25 percent of lawful votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during the presidential election, the commission stated, “This is completely unrelated to the validity or invalidity of votes.”
NigeriaNow (
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