Updated: Obi Approaches Court To Retrieve ‘Mandate’

To walk the talk, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has approached the court to retrieve the “mandate” he said Nigerians gave to him on Saturday.

THE WHISTLER reported that the presidential election held across the country on Saturday 25 February alongside the National Assembly elections.

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, was declared the winner of the disputed election.

In a World Press Conference on Thursday, Obi vowed to retrieve the mandate of the people freely given to him, and faulted the role of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the exercise.

In the court document seen on Friday morning by our Correspondent, Obi via an ex-parte motions filed at the Presidential Election Court, listed INEC, Tinubu and the APC as the first, second and third respondent.

The motion has been listed for hearing on Friday (today).

Obi’s applications was predicated on Section 146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, Paragraph 47 (1, 2 &3) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022, as well as under the inherent jurisdiction of the Court as referenced by Section 6 (6) A & B of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

Obi’s team of lawyers is led by Alex Ejesieme(SAN), who moved his application seeking six principal reliefs.

The applicant sought the court to compel the INEC to allow them to obtain documents used during the contentious presidential election on Saturday.

He justified the request based on the importance of the documents as it would aid his petition against the outcome of the election, which led to the declaration of Tinubu as the winner.

Tinubu was declared the winner of the election despite heavy protestation and demand for INEC to review some contentious results, with the electoral umpire saying the former Lagos State governor polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku who polled a total of 6,984,520 votes and Obi of the LP, who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.