ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of Labour Party, has formally filed his petition to the elections tribunal to protest the outcome of the 25 February poll.
Obi’s petition is coming four weeks after the presidential and National Assembly elections that produced Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the President-elect.
This was made known in a statement issued by Dr. Yunusa Tanko, the Chief Spokesperson of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council.
The statement reads: “It is official the Labor Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi has filed his petition to the presidential elections tribunal in Abuja. The process of reclaiming the people’s mandate has started.”
Although Tanko did not reveal why it took his principal this long to file the petition, a source within the party disclosed that Obi wanted to properly collate materials to back up his claim of massive rigging, voters intimidation and corruption allegation against the electoral umpire.
“You know Obi doesn’t like talking without getting facts. That’s why he took his time before he officially filed his case at the tribunal,” he added.
Tanko had told Punch last Tuesday that the lawyers of the LP presidential candidate were making progress with their inspection of electoral data after they were granted access to gather some relevant information from the materials supplied.
He said this after the legal team met with the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who promised that the commission would give the legal team access to the materials.
At the parley, the head of the legal delegation, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, who led 60 lawyers to the meeting had urged the commission to urgently make the polls materials available as the team was running against the deadline to file its petition against the outcome of the presidential poll.