AFRICAN REPORT; NIGERIA GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS

• Africa News Update
• March 24, 2023

Post Gubernatorial elections in Abia State Nigeria.

In West Africa, Nigeria,

The governorship of the Labour Party (LP), Alex Otti, has been declared the winner of the Abia State governorship election. We learn from PREMIUM TIMES that the Returning Officer for the election, Nnenna Oti, made the declaration at the State Collation Centre, Umuahia, the state capital, on Wednesday. Mrs Oti, a professor and vice-chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, made the declaration after collating results from Obingwa Local Government Area of the state.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission had, on Monday, suspended the collation of governorship results from the council area over an alleged attack on its officials and irregularities. The commission on Wednesday said it had completed the review of the disputed results and okayed the continuation of results collation from the council. In the Obingwa LGA results, the LP candidate polled a total of 3,776 while the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Okey Ahiwe, scored a total of 9,962 votes. The final results showed that the LP candidate won in 10 local government areas while the PDP candidate won in six local government areas.

The candidate of the Young Progressives Party won in Osisioma Local Government Area, where he hails from. There are 17 local government areas in the state. While Mr Premium times holds it thatMr Otti, the LP candidate, polled a total of 172,386 votes to defeat his closest rival and candidate of the PDP, Mr Ahiwe, who garnered a total of 88,174 votes to come a distant second, Punch has it that Otti polled a total of 175,466 to defeat his closest rival and candidate of the PDP who scored 88,526. The Returning Officer, Prof. Nnenna Oti, declared the LP candidate the winner at the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Umuahia, the state capital, Wednesday afternoon after completing the suspended collation of results.

Let’s have. Look at the reaction of the youths over Mr Otti’s winning

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Reactions of youths over Otti winning

Meanwhile, the lawsuit filed against inec has had some interesting recent developments.

having more Nigerian political parties file for the nullification of the declaration of Bola Tinubu of All Progressives Congress (APC) as president-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Obi, yesterday, Wednesday, asked the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to declare him as the authentic winner of the February 25 presidential election. In the petition filed by his team of lawyers, including 13 Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), among who are Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, Away Kalu, Onyechi Ikpeazu, Chief Sebastian Hon, and Jibrin Okutepa, Obi hinged his request on the grounds that he, and not Tinubu, scored majority of lawful votes cast at the presidential poll. AA’s petition was contained in suit number CA/PEPC/01/2023, while that of APM was CA/PEPC/03/2023, and that of LP was marked CA/PEPC/04/2023.

Atiku swelled the list with his petition filed on Tuesday in Abuja. Although details of the application by PDP Candidate were yet to be made available in the petition marked: /PEPC/05/2023, Atiku and his party had since faulted the entire process that led to the emergence of Tinubu as president-elect. The petition, marked: CA/PEPC/03/2023 and filed by Uzoukwu, was predicated on three grounds, among which were that: Tinubu as at the time of the election was not qualified to contest the election; the election of Tinubu was invalid by reason of corrupt practices or non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022; and that Tinubu was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the presidential election.

While Obi and LP are the petitioners in the suit dated March 20, 2023, INEC, Tinubu, Shettima, and APC are First, Second, Third, and Fourth respondents, respectively. In the first ground of the petition, Obi and LP argued that the nomination of Shettima as vice president was done in violation of the law and as such should be disqualified. According to the petitioners, as at the time Shettima purportedly became a vice presidential candidate, he was still the nominated senatorial candidate of APC for the senatorial election for Borno Central Senatorial Constituency. Besides, Obi and LP also insisted that Tinubu was “at the time of the election not qualified to contest for election to the office of President as he was fined the sum of $460,000.00 (Four-Hundred and Sixty Thousand United States Dollars) for an offense involving dishonesty, namely narcotics trafficking imposed by the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, in Case No: 93C 4483.”

Documents they intend to tender in proving their claim include; a) Verified Complaint for Forfeiture, submitted by Michael J. Shepard (United States Attorney) and signed by Marsha A. McClellan (Assistant United States Attorney); On the alleged corrupt practices or non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022, it was the case of the petitioners that INEC, the fourth respondent, failed to transmit results electronically as stipulated by the law. Obi and LP contended that the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS (BVAS), Election Results Collation System (CSRVS), and the INEC Results Viewing Portal were aimed at giving the election necessary transparency and credibility.

They claimed that despite a court order, INEC refused to give/issue those forms and refused to allow the inspection of the forms.

The court case vis a vis Labor party’s lawsuit against All Progressive Congress is still heated in the courts, as always we’ll bring up to speed with any recent developments from here.