The Julius Abure led faction of the Labour Party (LP) has rejected the judgments of the Presidential Election Petitions Court in the party’s petitions challenging the electoral victory of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the February 25, 2023 poll just as the other faction of the party led by Lamidi Apapa accepted the judgement declaring that the party’s standard flag bearer, Peter Obi went on a goose chase.
In a statement after the verdict of the Tribunal on Wednesday, LP’s National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, said justice was not served in the petitions of the party against the APC and Tinubu.
He also said the Labour Party will make its next move known upon consultation with its lawyers after receiving the Certified True Copy of the judgments.
The party said the judgment of the court “did not reflect the law and the desire of the people”.
“Nigerians were witnesses to the electoral robbery that took place on February 25, 2023, which was globally condemned but the Tribunal in its wisdom refused to accept the obvious,” the statement partly read.
“What is at stake is democracy and we will not relent until the people will prevail.
“We salute the doggedness of our team of lawyers who fearlessly exposed the wrath in our system. We can only weep for democracy in Nigeria but we refuse to give up on Nigeria.
“Details of the party’s position will be presented after consultation with our lawyers after the Certified True Copy of the judgment is made available to us.”
Inits own reaction, the Lamidi Apapa-led faction of the Labour Party (LP) said it has accepted the judgement of the five-man panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court which dismissed the petition of its Presidential candidate in the February 25 Presidential election, Peter Obi for lacking in merit.
The faction said as “a law abiding party, we accept the verdict, and we are going back to the drawing board to know where we have gone wrong.”
The Apapa-led faction said it warned Obi not to pursue any case, saying that this will only result in “chasing a wild goose.”
The party in a statement by its factional National Publicity Secretary, Abayomi Arabambi, while reacting to the verdict of the Presidential Election Tribunal, which struck out Obi’s petition against the election of President Bola Tinubu.
The statement said: “It is a shame that the legal team of Mr Peter Obi failed to advise him properly before going to the tribunal.
“Peter Obi has just gone on a wild goose chase. Imagine the candidate that failed to fund the party in order to engage the number of required polling agents, also the filing of the witnesses outside the stipulated time has shown that the legal team is a failure.
“Some of us have been saying that Peter Obi decided to go to the tribunal to justify all the money he collected during the campaign, all that money was corruptly siphoned.
“It’s unfortunate that Obi failed to convince the Tribunal those polling units where he was rigged out. The tribunal also said that he ‘made generic allegations of irregularities against the respondent without specifying the polling units.’
“The petitioners alleged irregularities and will use spreadsheets, inspection reports, and forensic analysis as evidence in the trial. The documents promised by the petitioners were not attached to the petition and served on the respondents.
“The Tribunal also affirmed that the Nigeria Police, through IGP, had written to the US to confirm the criminal status of Bola Tinubu and the US government had replied in 2003 stating that Bola Tinubu had no criminal records in the US.
“Thus, our previous position has now been confirmed that Peter Obi was just all out to defraud our party of donations made towards 2023 general election which was in a scary sum of $15million and N12 billion that Peter Obi deliberate used for cure Abure poverty lineage and help other Julius Abure IPOB irresponsible ethnic irredeemable irredentist supporters in order to have a life line
“Our party is also in tandem with the tribunal that the claim by the Labour Party concerning the blurred 18,088 results sheets is totally unfounded as the party ought to have agents at every polling unit who will have a copy of the result sheet, but here Peter Obi fraudulently converted all monies due to our agents across the country and they all refuse to represent the party at all pooling units
“On Peter Obi request that 25% FCT vote is a requirement before a president can be declared, we noted that this is a shame on the part of Peter Obi legal teams to be told in clear terms that Abuja is equal to every other states in Nigeria since according to the Tribunal, residents of Abuja don’t have special privileges, every Nigerian is equal.
“Finally, in the hall of fame of absurdities, the prayers presented at the tribunal by Peter Obi and the restrained former National Chairman, Julius Abure should be framed for entertainment of future students of Law
“How does anyone claim to have won an election based solely on pejoratives, assumption, vague rhetorics and zero evidence pointing to such being the case, but on the expectation that the actual winner would be disqualified and by some stroke of black magic, the candidate in the 3rd place will suddenly be declared winner, without any proof of having scored the majority vote is absolute rascality on display by Peter Obi and Julius Abure.
“As a law abiding party, we accept the verdict, and we are going back to the drawing board to know where we have gone wrong.”
