In a petition filed by Peter Obi to overturn the declaration that Bola Tinubu won the February 25 presidential election, the five-person Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani, struck out a few sentences that contained allegations of irregularities and corrupt practices.
Because the impacted paragraphs were “vague, imprecise, nebulous, and failed to meet the requirements of pleadings,” Justice Abba Mohammed, who is reading the lead judgment, struck them out.
In his decision on the preliminary objections brought by INEC, Tinubu, and the APC, Justice Mohammed stated that “averments” must not be vague or ambiguous, and that the purpose of pleadings is to provide respondents with the relevant facts so that they can appropriately prepare.
The PEPC stated that it is insufficient for the petitioners to just state that some collation centers or voting places were involved in an alleged case of malpractice involving more than 500 polling places.
Mohammed ruled that “averments must not be general but specific” and that “petitioners failed to specify polling units where anomalies occurred or where agents complained of alleged malpractices and irregularities.”
In addition, PEPC emphasized that not a single voting location was mentioned out of the total of over 18,000 polling locations where the petitioners claimed INEC uploaded “blurred results” to the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) Portals.
They failed to identify polling locations where Tinubu’s score was increased or decreased or polling places where the results of the election were not submitted.
The panel concluded that “they did not show the majority of votes they claimed they had scored,” adding that the petitioners merely make general claims of irregularities and malpractices.
It is inconceivable that a petitioner would allege widespread rigging in 176,000 polling places, over 8,000 wards, 774 local government areas, 36 States, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) without identifying the precise location where the alleged irregularities take place.
Additionally, Mohammed criticized the petitioners for relying on spreadsheet analysis, inspection findings, and expert assessments.
For the responders to be able to conduct their own analysis and provide appropriate responses, Mohammed said that such materials should be delivered to them.
According to the court, “the spreadsheet report, inspection results, and expert reports were not served but were merely listed as documents to be relied on in adjudicating the petition.”
