Mohammed Shosanya
Factional leader of Labour Party,Alhaji Lamidi Apampa,says saying that the party had warned against the stand of its presidential candidate in the February 25,2023 election,Peter Obi that he was only chasing a wild goose.
His action came on the heels of Wednesday’s presidential tribunal verdict which affirmed President Bola Tinubu as the valid winner of the election
He conveyed this in a statement by the national publicity secretary of the Party, Dr Abayomi Arabambi,saying it was a shame that the legal team of Mr Peter Obi failed to advice him properly before going to the tribunal.
Accepting the Wednesday’s verdict,the party maintained that the whole process is a waste of time.
“Peter Obi has just gone on a wild goose chase, imaging the candidate that failed to fund the party in order to engage the number of required polling agents, also the filing of the witnesses outside the stipulated time has shown that the legal team is a failure.
“Some of us have been saying that Peter Obi decided to go to the tribunal to justify all the money he collected during the campaign, all that money was corruptly syphoned.
“It’s unfortunate that Obi failed to convince the Tribunal those polling units where he was rigged out. The tribunal also said that he “made generic allegations of irregularities against the respondent without specifying the polling units
“The petitioners allege irregularities and will use spreadsheets, inspection reports, and forensic analysis as evidence in the trial.The documents promised by the petitioners were not attached to the petition and served on the respondents,” he added.
The Justices ruled that Obi and the Labour Party did not adequately detail their allegations of corrupt practices, vote suppression, fictitious results, and other irregularities in their petition.
Labour party noted with all sense of purpose and in full agreement with the Presidential Tribunal that struck out report from the EU tendered by Peter Obi from Its record for not meeting the clarification guidelines.
The court said it rejected the reports on the ground that it was not tendered by official of the body which is the author and has custody of the document and also that Peter Obi lawyers were aware that the actual copy of the report was earlier in line with all extant Law that same report had earlier been tendered by Atiku Abubakar and PDP while prosecuting their petition before the tribunal
The Tribunal also affirmed that the Nigeria Police, through its IGP, had written to the US to confirm the criminal status of Bola Tinubu and the US government had replied in 2003 stating that Bola Tinubu had no criminal records in the US.
“Thus our previous position has now been confirmed that Peter Obi was just all out to defraud our party of donations made towards 2023 General Election which was in a scary Sum of $15m dollars and N12 billion Naira that Peter Obi deliberate used for cure Abure poverty lineage and help other Julius Abure IPOB irresponsible ethnic irredeemable irredentist supporters in order to have a life line
“0ur party is also in tandem with the tribunal that the claim by the Labour Party concerning the blurred 18,088 results sheets is totally unfounded as the party ought to have agents at every polling unit who will have a copy of the result sheet but here Peter Obi fraudulently converted all monies due to our agent across the country and they all refuse to represent the party at all pooling units
“On Peter Obi request that 25% FCT vote is a requirement before a president can be declared, we noted that this is a shame on the part of Peter Obi legal teams to be told in clear terms that Abuja is equal to every other states In Nigeria since according to the tribunal , residents Of Abuja don’t have special privileges, every Nigerian is equal.
“Finally ,in the hall of fame of absurdities,the prayers presented at the tribunal by Peter Obi and the restrained former National Chairman Julius Abure should be framed for entertainment of future students of Law
“How does anyone claim to have won an election based solely on pejoratives, assumption,vague rhetorics and zero evidence pointing to such being the case ,but on the expectation that the actual winner would be disqualified and by some stroke of black magic the candidate in the 3rd place will suddenly be declared winner , without any proof of having scored the Majority vote is absolute rascality on display by Peter Obi and Julius Abure”,the statement said.
