THE candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the just concluded Presidential election, Peter Obi, has finally submitted a petition challenging the outcome of the election held on February 25.
This was announced by the spokesperson of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Yunusa Tanko, on his official Twitter handle on Tuesday, March 21.
“It is official. The Labor Party Presidential candidate Peter OBI has filed his petition to the presidential elections tribunal in Abuja. The process of reclaiming the people’s mandate has started.” he tweeted.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the presidential poll ahead of 17 other candidates that contested the election.
The Chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, announced the result of the election on March 1.
According to the result released by INEC, Tinubu scored a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled a total of 6,984,520 votes, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), who came third with 6,101,533 votes.
The PDP and LP candidates had since rejected the outcome of the election and vowed to challenge it in court.
An election petition must be presented and filed within 21 days of the declaration of the result.
When a petitioner misses the deadline to file his petition and it is later ruled to be statute-barred, he forfeits his right to bring the case.
A reporter with the ICIR
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