Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, has said he has not had any court to doubt the judiciary regarding the case before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
He stated this on Thursday morning during a live appearance on Channels Television. Obi said he is confident that the judiciary will deliver the right judgement.
Recall Obi had approached the tribunal challenging the result of the February 25 presidential election that produced Bola Tinubu of the All Progressive Congress (APC).
What Obi said: Obi said his confidence in the judiciary is premised on the judgement delivered by the court when he was impeached as a Governor. He said:
- “I am confident in the judiciary. I am because I have stayed in court for three years when people said it’s impossible for you to become a governor through the court and I became the first. Remember I was impeached and again the court brought me back. And I went for an interpretation where I said ‘my tenure is not complete’. People said it was impossible because somebody else had been elected but I changed it.
- “So having gone through courts, several of them, I have not had any course to doubt the court.
- “I believe Nigeria has one of the best judiciaries globally, but it is we, politicians, because of our transactional nature, that is trying to ensure that everywhere is corrupted and that I wish can start reversing, even with this case. They are seeing globally what is happening, and Africans are surprised that the giant of Africa can no longer deliver. Even Ghana will soon have elections and they will do all without the BVAS and it will go smoothly.
- “I don’t go anywhere referring to how others were treated. Irrespective of their controversial judgments recently (referring to the Supreme Court), I have confidence that they know the country is collapsing, they know they have to help to build a better place for their children.” Obi said.
The backstory: The just concluded presidential election which was held on February 25, had produced Bola Tinubu as the president-elect.
Dissatisfied with the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Obi approached the presidential election tribunal sitting at the court of appeal in Abuja.
He asked the court to order INEC to allow him and his party access to inspect election materials used during the election.
- The court granted his request and ordered INEC to allow him to inspect the election materials used during the presidential election.
- However, When Obi and his party visited the INEC office, They were denied access to inspect the sensitive materials used for the election including the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine.
- Obi again returned to court personally with his lawyers seeking an order to compel INEC to allow them to access the election materials to aid his petition before the tribunal.
- The tribunal restrained INEC from tampering with the materials used during the election until the due inspection was conducted and certified true copies (CTC) were issued to Obi.
- INEC in turn filed a motion on notice dated March 4, praying the court to vary the order which restrained it from tampering with materials used for the election.
- INEC made the prayer because it needed to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines ahead of the gubernatorial and state house of assembly elections.
- The tribunal granted INEC’s prayer and granted it leave to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the March 18 election. held that preventing
- The tribunal held that stopping the electoral umpire from reconfiguring the BVAS would adversely affect the forthcoming governorship and State Assembly elections.
- The court also ordered INEC to allow Obi, Atiku and Tinubu alongside their parties to inspect and carry out a digital forensic examination of all the electoral materials used in the conduct of the elections.
