A court in Nigeria has rejected a request by the country’s main opposition parties to nullify the victory of Bola Ahmed Tinubu in February’s presidential election.
The Presidential Election Petition Court in a nearly nine-hour judgement Wednesday in the capital Abuja maintained that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) and Allied Peoples Movement (APM) failed to prove their allegation of Tinubu’s involvement in a narcotic deal in the US and election malpractices in about half of the country’s 36 states beyond “reasonable doubt.”
“The petitioner is unable to prove its case and claim of conviction of the second respondent in the US for involvement in a narcotic case and forfeiture of $460,000 in the same case,” Justice Haruna Tsammani, the head of a five-member panel, declared in his lead judgement.
In his petition, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, had asked the court to disqualify Tinubu, the All Progressive Party (APC) candidate, on the grounds of his alleged involvement in the narcotic deal in the US.
The PDP and APM also asked the court to cancel the Feb. 25 declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election for having appointed a vice presidential candidate who was contesting a senatorial seat in the country’s national legislature, contrary to the law.
But the court maintained that Tinubu did not contravene the law as documents from his lawyers showed the nominated candidate for vice president withdrew from the senatorial contest a few months before the polls.
“There is nothing in the constitution which bars a candidate from nominating a running mate if the original running mate withdraws. You don’t need primaries to pick a running mate. The petition of the APM is therefore without any merit,” the court ruled.
Tinubu secured 8.8 million votes in the election while the opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, garnered 6.9 million votes and Peter Obi of the LP got 6.1 million votes.