September 06, (THEWILL) – The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting at the Court of Appeal, Abuja, on Wednesday, ruled that the nomination of Peter Obi as the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) was valid and legal.
Justice Abba Mohammed, one of the five-member panel of the court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, gave the ruling while delivering judgment on the petition filed by Peter Obi against the election of President Bola Tinubu.
President Bola Tinubu had, in his response to Obi’s petition, faulted the candidacy of the LP presidential candidate.
Tinubu had prayed the court to disqualify Obi, having defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to secure the presidential ticket of the LP at a time when he was not a member of the party.
According to the court, the decision on who emerges as a candidate of a political party is an “internal affair” of the Labour Party and all other parties and therefore, Tinubu’s request lacked competence.
The court held that the argument that Obi defected from the PDP and only joined the Labour Party less than 30 days before his emergence as the candidate of the party in the 2023 presidential election was an act of interloping and interfering with the internal affairs of another party.
Justice Mohammed also dismissed the argument by Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his counterpart in the LP, Peter Obi, that President Bola Tinubu was not qualified to contest the February 25 presidential election.
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