The “President-elect”, Bola Tinubu, has described calls for a run-off of the March 18th 2023 presidential election as baseless.
Tinubu also queried the legal competence of the petition the Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, filed to nullify his election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had announced Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 election.
Atiku, who came second in the election had filed his petition to challenge the outcome of the poll at the Presidential Election Petition Court.
In his petition before the tribunal, he alleged that the election was characterised by various irregularities including the non-qualification of the APC candidate.
Atiku also alleged that Tinubu failed to win the majority of the lawful votes cast in the election, and just as he could not secure one-quarter of the lawful votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
He also alleged that the election was conducted in substantial non-compliance with the provision of the law.
The PDP candidate subsequently urged the court to either declare him the president-elect, in the belief that he scored the majority of the lawful votes during the election, or nullify the entire election and order a fresh election.
However, Tinubu, in a preliminary objection he entered before the tribunal described Atiku as a consistent serial loser that had since 1993, crisscrossed different political parties, in search of power.
The court document read, “The 1st petitioner (Atiku) has been consistently contesting and losing successive presidential elections in Nigeria since 1993, whether at the party primary election level or at the general election; including 1993, when he lost the Social Democratic Party (SDP) primary election to the late Chief M.K.O Abiola; 2007, when he lost the presidential election to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua; 2011, when he lost the Peoples Democratic Party presidential primary election to President Goodluck Jonathan; 2015, when he lost the APC primary election to President Muhammadu Buhari; 2019, when he lost the presidential election to President Muhammadu Buhari; and now, 2023, when he has again, lost the presidential election to the respondent.
“Further to (iv) supra, it was/is not a surprise and/or not by accident that the electorate rejected the 1st petitioner at the polls of the presidential election held on 25th February, 2023.”
Insisting that he was validly returned as winner of the presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Tinubu told the court that unlike Atiku, he has been “a most consistent politician, who has not shifted political tendency and alignment”.
“The 1st petitioner has consistently crisscrossed different political parties of Nigeria, including being a member of the PDP, before joining the Action Congress in 2007, when he was the presidential candidate of the party; returned to the PDP thereafter, before joining the 3rd respondent in 2015, where he contested the primary election with President Muhammadu Buhari, before returning to the PDP in 2019 to emerge as its presidential candidate.
“Arising from paragraph 9 supra, while the respondent has always carried his supporters along and increased his political followership, the 1st petitioner has lost most of his followers in the process of moving from one political party to the other.
“The emergence of the 1st petitioner as the presidential candidate of the 2nd petitioner led to irreconcilable hostilities within the ranks of the 2nd petitioner, causing the emergence of a group of Governors known all over the country as the G-5 Governors- Rivers, Oyo, Enugu, Abia and Benue, who opposed the 1st petitioner and vowed to mobilise their people against him.
“The respondent shall at the trial, find and rely on copies of newspaper publications and social media contents in respect of the said subject.
“While the 1st petitioner contested the presidential election of 2019 with President Muhammadu Buhari under a fairly cohesive Peoples Democratic Party with Peter Gregory Obi as his running mate and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso as one of his supporters;
“The same Peter Gregory Obi broke away from the PDP to join the Labour Party to contest the presidential election of 25th February, 2023, while Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso also broke away from PDP to contest the presidential election on the ticket of the New Nigeria People’s Party. While Peter Obi polled a total number of 6,101,533, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso polled 1,496,687.
“Before the balkanisation of the 2nd petitioner, the South-Eastern States of Enugu, Abia, Imo, Ebonyi and Anambra used to be controlled by the 2nd petitioner, but at the presidential election of 25th February, 2023, they all went the way of Labour Party”.
Tinubu argued that his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, is a national party, popular amongst Nigerians, cutting across all divides.
