By Kayode Lawal
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has appealed against the tribunal judgement which upheld the victory of President Bola Tinubu at the Supreme Court.
Obi in a 50 grounds notice of appeal by his lead counsel, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, challenged the decision of the presidential election tribunal.
The notice of appeal partly read, “Take notice that the Appellants being dissatisfied with the decisions in PETITION NO: CA/PEPC/03/2023 MR. PETER GREGORY OBI & ANOR. v. INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION & ORS. (consolidated with Election Petition Nos: CA/PEPC/04/2023 and CA/PEPC/05/2023), contained in pages 3-327 of the Judgment of the Court of Appeal sitting as the Presidential Election Petition Court, Holden at Abuja, Coram: H. S. Tsammani, Stephen Jonah Adah, Misitura Omodere Bolaji-Yusuff, Boloukuroma Moses Ugo and Abba Bello Mohammed, JJ.C.A. (“the Court below”) delivered on the 6th day of September 2023, and more particularly stated in paragraph 2 of this Notice of Appeal, do hereby appeal to the Supreme Court on the Grounds set out in Paragraph 3 and will at the hearing of the appeal seek the Reliefs sought in paragraph 4 herein.”
Obi, in his appeal, maintained that the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, erred in law and thereby reached a wrong conclusion when it dismissed the petition he lodged to challenge the outcome of the presidential poll that was held on February 25.
Among other things, he contended that Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel of the Court of Appeal, wrongly occassioned a grave miscarriage of justice against him, when it held that he did not specify polling units where irregularities occurred during the election.
He further faulted the PEPC for dismissing his case on the premise that he did not specify the figures of votes or scores that were allegedly suppressed of inflated in favour of President Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Obi equally accused the Justice Tsammani-led panel of erring in law when it relied on paragraph 4(1) (d) (2) and 54 of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act 2022 to strike out paragraphs of his petition.
While accusing the lower court of breaching his right to fair hearing, Obi, insisted that evidence of his witnesses were wrongly dismissed as incompetent.
He told the apex court that the panel unjustly dismissed his allegation that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, uploaded 18, 088 blurred results on its IReV portal.
More so, he alleged that the lower court ignored his allegation that certified true copies of documents that INEC issued to his legal team, comprised of 8, 123 blurred results that contained blank A4 papers, pictures and images of unknown persons, purporting same to be the CTC of polling units results of the presidential election.
“The learned justices of the court below erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of justice when they held and concluded that he failed to establish the allegation of corrupt practices and over-voting,” Obi added.
