The defeated candidate, Peter Obi, vows to legally challenge the results a day after Bola Ahmed Tinubu was declared the winner.
Abuja, Nigeria – The leader of the Labor Party, Peter Obi, the third candidate in the presidential election in Nigeria, has promised to challenge the result in court.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared the winner and president-elect on Wednesday, receiving 37 percent of the vote. The main candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party Atiku Abubakar got 29 percent of the vote, while Obi got 25 percent of the vote, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In his first public address since the official results were announced, Obi said he would prove he was robbed of victory and urged his supporters not to lose hope.
“The people of Nigeria have once again been robbed of their rightful leaders in whom they trusted … we will explore all legal and peaceful options to regain our mandate,” Obi said on Thursday afternoon at press conference in the capital, Abuja.
“We won the election and we will prove it to Nigerians. Please don’t despair.”
He provided no evidence to support his claims.
“We have been asked to go to court,” he continued as he called on people to be peaceful and law abiding. “Let’s go there… I will challenge this abomination for the future of the country. This is not the end but the beginning of the journey for the birth of a new Nigeria.”
Before Saturday’s vote, several polls had projected Obi, who is popular among young voters, as the winner of the election. Many experts warned that the election would be so closely contested that there was a possibility of a run-off for the first time in Nigerian political history.
To be declared the winner, a candidate must have a plurality of the popular vote and at least 25 percent of the vote in 24 of Nigeria’s 36 states and Abuja. Tinubu passed both criteria, eliminating the need for a second round.
Barring any decision to the contrary by the courts, Tinubu will be sworn in on May 29 as the successor to outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari who has been in power since 2015.
Several observer missions criticized the election process after the results were announced, noting that a new portal introduced for transparency and efficiency had not done much to improve the process.
“INEC lacked effective planning and transparency at critical stages of the electoral process,” said Barry Andrews, head of the European Union observer team. A coalition of Nigerian civil society groups said the election fell short of “the threshold of credibility ” and “married to a very bad gang… and several incidents of violence”.
Obi began the much-anticipated press conference by calling for a moment of silence in honor of “all those who died during the electoral process”.
The former governor of Anambra in south-eastern Nigeria said he and Baba-Ahmed were committed to contesting the election results which “did not meet the minimum standards expected” in the court and that he was grateful to “the young people who believed and worked hard for a new man. Nigeria”.
On Wednesday, the leaders of the Labor Party held a press conference with their counterparts from the People’s Democratic Party and the African Democratic Congress (ADC), calling the election a “sham” and calling for the cancel it. They also called for the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, to step down for someone else “outside the commission” to hold fresh elections.
But Obi, who said he was not consulted or pressured by the international community, said he was not part of any alliance in challenging the outcome of the vote. However, he urged all Nigerians who wanted to see a fair process to participate.
The leader of the Labor Party has had a long history in his political career.
In 2006, the Supreme Court declared Obi as the actual winner of the Anambra governorship elections held three years earlier. The Minister of Labor Chris Ngige, who was then of the PDP, was not sitting in office.
Obi later won a court victory confirming that his tenure began when he was sworn into office and not after the election was held; the decision has become a precedent in Nigeria’s political landscape and the reason is that governorship elections on March 11 will be held in only 28 states.
In 2007, the Supreme Court also reinstated Obi after he was impeached by the state parliament.
