By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
Hope rising for the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Gregory Obi as the Supreme Court of Nigeria has fixed Monday, October 23, 2023 as the day the apex court will hear the appeal lodged by Obi and Labour Party against the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal judgement that affirmed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 Presidential Election.
Multiple media reports obtained by Prompt News on Thursday evening revealed that the decision was reached by Supreme Court to hear the appeal on Thursday.
“Barring any last minute changes, the apex court will hear the appeal on Monday,” according to one of the sources who pleaded anonymity.
Recall that Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party had filed an appeal at the Supreme Court of Nigeria seeking to overturn the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) affirming Tinubu’s election.
Also, the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, similarly filed his appeal to challenge the PEPC’s verdict delivered on September 6.
The appellants had 14 days from the date of judgement to file their appeal to challenge the verdict at the Supreme Court.
Obi and Atiku had filed separate petitions at the PEPC accusing Nigeria’s electoral umpire, INEC, and Tinubu of electoral malpractices. They contested Tinubu’s qualification to stand for election and urged the PEPC to set aside the election.
But the court, in its decision, held that they failed to substantiate their claims of electoral fraud against INEC and the president.
In his notice of appeal dated September 19, Obi’s lead counsel, Livy Uzoukwu, predicated his client’s appeal to the Supreme Court on 51 grounds.
In one of the grounds, Uzoukwu told the Supreme Court that the five-member panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court led by Haruna Tsammani “erred in law and thereby reached a wrong conclusion” when it dismissed Obi’s suit.
Uzoukwu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), faulted the presidential election court’s evaluation of Obi’s evidence. He said the court erroneously ruled that Obi’s case failed to establish the polling stations where electoral malpractices took place during the February presidential election.
The lawyer also said the lower court’s conclusions caused “grave miscarriage of justice” when it held that Obi did not identify the specific number of votes he polled at polling units where he accused INEC and Tinubu of suppression of votes.
The appellant’s lawyer urged the Supreme Court to determine if the presidential election court did not err in law when it based its reasons on the First Schedule of the Electoral Act 2022 to expunge Obi’s witnesses’ statements on oath from the court’s records.
