The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, Mr Peter Obi, said the Supreme Court judgement that affirmed President Bola Tinubu’s victory amount to willfully aiding and abetting breaches of the constitution relative to established qualifications and parameters for candidates in presidential elections.
Obi stated this at a press conference held in yesterday in Abuja on the recent court judgement on the election.
Recall that on October 26, the Supreme Court quashed the appeal filed by Obi of the Labour Party and that of the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate, Mr Atiku Abubakar, challenging the election of Tinubu.
In his official reaction since the verdict was passed, Obi said the court’s judgement “contradicts the overwhelming evidence of election rigging, false claim of a technical glitch, substantial non-compliance with rules set by INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) itself as well as matters of perjury, identity theft, and forgery that have been brought to light in the course of this election matter.”
Obi who described the allegations as “hefty” that “should not to be treated with levity” said the apex court’s counter-intuitive judgment, “has transferred a heavy moral burden from the courtrooms to our national conscience.”
He said the judgment amounts to a total breach of the confidence the Nigerian people have in our judiciary adding that “it is a show of unreasonable force against the very Nigerian people from whom the power of the Constitution derives.”
“This Supreme Court ruling may represent the state of the law in 2023 but not the present demand for substantive justice. The judgment mixed principles and precepts,” Obi said adding that the rationale and premise of the became clearer in the light of the deep revealing and troubling valedictory remarks by a retired Supreme Court judge, Musa Dattijo Muhammad.
Obi accused the judiciary of largely acting in defiance of constitutional tenets, precedents, and established ground rules stressing that “political expediency has preceded judicial responsibility” and “mechanical application of technicalities has superseded the pursuit of justice and fairness.”
Obi said in disagreeing strongly with the ruling of both the Presidential Petitions Court (PEPC) and the Supreme Court on the outcome of the 25th February 2023 Presidential election as declared INEC, he and his running mate in the election, Mr Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed had exhausted all legal and constitutional remedies available to them as the Supreme Court ‘is the end stage of the quest for legal closure to the matter.”
Nevertheless, he said “where the value and import of the recent Supreme Court ruling ends is where our commitment to a New Nigeria begins. Our mission and mandate remain unchanged.
From the very onset, our mission has been more about enthroning a new Nigeria. It is a new nation where things work, where the country is led from its present waste and consumption orientation to a production-driven economy.
Our commitment is to a nation anchored on the principles of prudent management of resources to quickly pull millions out of multidimensional poverty, ensuring transparency and accountability in the equitable distribution of opportunities, resources, and privileges. In the new Nigeria, we aim to address all unmet needs by showing compassion for all those left behind by the present system,” he said.
Obi said the judgement “is only another beginning in our quest for the vindication of the hope of the common man for a better country” as it “behooves us to place our disagreement with and deep reservations about this judgment on public record.”
Going forward, Obi said “we in the LP and the Obidient Movement are now effectively in opposition” and “are glad that the nation has heard us loud and clear,” pledging that “we shall now expand the confines of our message of hope to the rest of the country…meet the people in the places where they feel pain and answer their needs for hope…in marketplaces, motor parks, town halls, board rooms, and university and college campuses.”
As stake holders and elected LP officials, he said “we will continue to canvas for good governance and focus on issues that promote national interest, unity, and cohesion…continue to give primacy to our Constitution, the rule of law and the protection of ordered liberties…offer the checks and balances required in a functional democracy and vie robustly in forthcoming elections to elect those who share our vision of a new Nigeria.”
