Our reporter/ The presidential election petition tribunal on Wednesday dismissed Peter Obi’s challenge to Bola Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 presidential election.
After a six-hour verdict, they said the appeal by Peter Obi’s Labour Party was without merit and dismissed all his arguments, including fraud.
Their verdict on the challenge by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party is expected shortly.
Despite the election challenge, Tinubu was sworn into office on 29 May.
The ruling on the same day Tinubu marked 100 days in office.
The case will inevitably move to the Supreme Court as his opponents are likely to appeal against this judgement.
Lead justice Haruna Tsammani, who read the verdict, said “the petitioners failed to prove allegations of corrupt practices and over-voting”.
He said that the petitioners failed to specify the polling units where they alleged that rigging took place.
The court also said the petitioners failed to provide any credible evidence to prove their allegations of suppression of votes in their strongholds.
Another contentious issue was the electronic transmission of results, which the electoral body blamed on technical issues on election day.
The court ruled that the electoral commission was not bound to transmit results electronically and that failure to upload the photographic copies of polling unit results in real time did not invalidate the election.
The also dismissed the argument that that Tinubu requires 25% of votes in the FCT to be declared winner of the election.
The court further ruled further ruled that the $460,000 Tinubu fortified to the US government for drug trafficking was not criminal indictment.
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