By Ben Kerrigan-
ABUJA- Nigeria’s Labour Party candidate Peter Obi, who came third in Nigeria’s presidential elections has vowed to prove in court that his supporters were “robbed” of victory.
Obi, who officially gained 25% of the votes according to official results, spoke in public for the first time since the weekend poll.
“We won the election and we will prove it to Nigerians,” he said.
Bola Tinubu of the ruling APC party was declared the winner, with 37% of the vote with Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition PDP came second with 29%.
Mr Obi said Saturday’s elections would go down as “one of the most controversial elections in Nigeria’s history”.
The 61-year-old candidate, whose inclusion in the elections ignited the youth vote, received about 6 million votes, according the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), just behind former vice president Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party.
Obi said he should have been declared the winner.”We will explore all legal and peaceful options to reclaim our mandate. We won the election and we will prove it to Nigerians,” Obi said in a televised press briefing from Abuja on Thursday, alleging the process was rigged.
“This election did not meet the minimum standard expected of a free, transparent, credible and fair election,” he said. “It will go down as one of the most controversial elections ever conducted in Nigeria. The good and hardworking people of Nigeria have been robbed by our supposed leaders whom they trusted.”
“The good and hard-working people of Nigeria have again been robbed by our supposed leaders whom they trusted,” he told journalists on Thursday.
He has 21 days from the day the results were announced to challenge the result at Nigeria’s highest appeal court.
However, Mr Obi refused to say what evidence he had to prove that he won the election but his challenge is likely to be based on the inability of the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) to publish results from the polling units in real time using a new electronic transmission system.
As Obi, who has an impeccable track record, left the venue, he was mobbed by a crowd of supporters with many chanting his name and others saying “My President.”
Obi is not new to election legal battles: In 2007, he was reinstated as governor of south eastern Anambra state three months after he was impeached by the state parliament.
He was returned to office by the courts on two other occasions, after the INEC declared his opponents as winners of the gubernatorial elections he contested.
Obi faces an uphill battle in proving his case, because sources in Nigeria highlight the shameful vulnerability of the court system to corruption.
Although, there are honourable judges with conviction who have overturned election verdicts in the past, many judges are poorly paid and susceptible to both corruption and intimidation.
Bola Tinubu of the ruling APC party was declared the winner, with 37% of the vote with Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition PDP came second with 29%.
Tinubu is accused of indulging ibn vote buying in the build up to the elections and a surfaced video reveals him imploring his supporters to fight and do whatever it takes to win the elections. That in itself, will not constitute full proof of fraud, but is a tarnish on his character.
The declared president of Saturday’s elections is credited with substantially improving the quality of Lagos, during his time as governor.
INEC’s guideline for the election explicitly states that results from each of the more than 176,000 polling stations will be electronically transmitted to the commission’s collation system and also uploaded to its website.
However, INEC failed to maintain those standards on Saturday, w apologising for what it described as “technical glitches”. It said that any discrepancies between results on the portal and “physical results” would be investigated and resolved.
INEC also blamed delays on factors it claimed where beyond its control, like the lack of internet access at some polling stations, for its inability to upload the results.
Lack of internet in an oil rich nation is one of the most pathetic excuses that can be provided for failing to deliver an election to professional standards.
Days after the elections ended, the commission has still not uploaded all the results from the polling units to its website.
The elections were marred by lengthy delays which saw some voters queuing through the night to cast their ballots and voting extended to Sunday in some areas.
Also compromising the standard of the elections were incidences of armed men attacking polling stations and stealing ballot boxes, to the shame of the nation. Such backward levels of conduct during an election is a serious stain on the constitution and a notable failing of previous administrations in failing to address the problem.
The extent to which such problems may have affected the outcome is unclear, considering Mr Tinubu had a margin of victory of about 1.8 million votes, yet the credibility of even those votes is brought into question once clear evidence of corruption and a will to distort the election outcome is revealed.
Opinion polls leading up to the elections had Obi leading , though such polls are not always fully reliable, but provide some indication of how voters are feeling. Mr Obi was with the PDP until last year, and was its vice-presidential candidate in 2019, but made the transition to the Labour Party after being denied the ticket by those using money to buy their way.
He was seen by many as a fresh face, and mounted a strong challenge to the two parties which have dominated Nigeria since the end of military rule in 1999.
He gained particular support among young people, especially in the south, who feel they have been failed by previous generations of political leaders.
Young Nigerians were banking on having Obi in power, with much older adults basing their votes on multiple factors, including what they have to gain from particular candidates winning personally, wither presently or in the future, and also along tribalistic lines.
Despite all that, the elections failed to live up to the standards of a democratic society.
Some journalists and commentators have sought to debunk alleged conspiracy theories about rigging, but all the facts suggest the elections, even if actually delivering a true outcome, was far from transparent, and largely corrupt.