Presidential polls: You sold your neutrality to APC, Obi tells INEC

•Says Tinubu first candidate in history to win presidential election without FCT

From Godwin Tsa, Abuja

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has maintained that the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) compromised its role of neutrality as an election umpire by manipulating results of the February 25 presidential polls in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Obi, who was responding to INEC preliminary objections and reply to his petition, said it was wishful thinking by the Commission to submit that his petition and reliefs sought therein before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) were vague, imprecise and ungrantable.

On the contrary, Obi urged the tribunal to assume jurisdiction and proceed to determine his petition as it was properly brought before it with necessary parties as required by law.

While maintaining that Tinubu was not elected by a majority of the lawful votes cast at the election, Obi submitted that the APC candidate was the candidate since 1999 to be declared winner of the presidential election without winning 25 percent of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Obi urged the tribunal to declare him winner of the presidential election, as he argued that: “The actual votes obtained at the polling units as shown in the report incorporated/pleaded in the petition, show that the petitioner won the majority of the lawful vote cast at the election and met the Constitutional requirements to be declared/returned as winner of the election.”

Obi, who picked holes in INEC’s contention that it relied on manual documents in declaring the winner of the disputed election, argued that by the applicable laws and regulations, the legitimate mode for resolving disputes at the collation is by resorting to the result uploaded on the IReV using the BVAS.

He submitted that as at the date of filing this reply on April 21, “the information on INEC’s IReV portal shows that out of the 176, 846 polling units, the result submitted were in respect of 167, 433 polling units; and that the percentage of the uploaded result on the IReV is 94.68 percent.

“That as required by law and in the various press releases/briefings including press interviews, INEC through its senior officials, represented and assured that for the 2023 general elections, the use of BVAS as a technological device for the accreditation of voters and online upload of result of the elections in the polling units was not only mandatory but an innovation introduced by INEC to increase transparency, public confidence in electoral process and in conformity with the legal requirements for the conduct of the election.

“That the results of the election was manipulated and not properly computed using the actual scores of the candidates nor verified with release to the uploaded results on the IReV.

“That failure to upload the presidential election results using BVAS to the IReV as required by law was a ploy by INEC to manipulate the actual results of the election.”

Obi who accused INEC of abandoning its role of neutrality during the election, said the global best practice for electoral umpires in national election is that an electoral body must avoid creating an impression that it has no respect for neutrality in an electoral contest between candidates.

“The appellate courts have repeatedly admonished the 1st respondent (INEC) of its need to remain neutral in election proceedings. Therefore, it is not only an embarrassment but a repudiation of duty of the first respondent when it adorns the garb of a contestant in an election it conducted as an umpire to raise preliminary objection against an election petition.”