The Presidential Election Petitions Court, in its ruling on Wednesday, has determined that the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, failed to substantiate their claim that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) intentionally delayed the uploading of polling unit results onto its Results Viewing Portal (IReV) with the intent of manipulating the outcome in favor of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The court pointed out that the petitioners had made non-compliance allegations a significant part of their case. According to Section 135(2) of the Electoral Act, they were obliged to demonstrate how such non-compliance substantially affected them. Failure to do so would result in the dismissal of the petition.
The petitioners also accused INEC of suppressing results, overvoting, and inflating votes. They contended that, based on the totality of the evidence, the elections should be declared invalid due to corrupt practices.
Regarding Rivers and Benue states, the petitioners alleged that INEC engaged in substantial misrepresentations during the collation process by uploading fictitious and inaccurate vote tallies. They claimed that, had the process been conducted correctly, they would have overwhelmingly won the elections in those states.
However, the Tribunal found that aside from the figures presented in those two states, the other allegations were vague and lacked specificity. The court emphasized that when alleging other crimes, material particulars must be pleaded and clearly outlined. Furthermore, the burden of proof must be beyond a reasonable doubt, and the petitioner must produce two sets of results— one genuine and one false.
