BREAKING: PEPC Declares APC’s Petition Challenging Obi’s LP Membership Incompetent
The Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC), on Wednesday afternoon, dismissed the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s petition challenging Peter Obi’s membership of the Labour Party (LP).
The ruling delivered by a member of panel of Justices of the Court, Justice Abba Mohammed, strongly emphasised the internal nature of political party membership matters, asserting that they should not be subject to external legal challenges.
This ruling, which deemed the APC petition as lacking merit, established a crucial legal precedent. It reaffirmed the autonomy of political parties in managing their internal affairs and reinforced the principle that the judiciary should refrain from interfering in matters that fall within the purview of political parties’ organizational structures.
Meanwhile, Justice Abba Bello Mohammed held that the Labour Pary (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, failed to adequately detail their allegations of corrupt practices, vote suppression, fictitious results, and other irregularities in their petition challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu in the February 25 presidential election.
According to Justice Abba Bello Mohammed who read the ruling on preliminary objections filed by the respondents, said the LP made generic allegations of irregularities, suppression of votes and corrupt practices to rob them of their votes, especially in Rivers, Benue, Lagos, Taraba, Imo and Osun States but failed to specify the affected polling units.
Justice Mohammed further held that LP also failed to prove the allegations of rigging and overvoting against the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their actual reduced votes.
According to him, Obi’s petition only alleged that there were widespread irregularities without giving the particulars and the polling units. He added that, in a presidential election held in 176,866 polling units in 774 Local Government Areas, it would be improper not to specify where there were irregularities.
Justice Mohammed therefore said the petitioners only made generic allegations.
