ONWUASOANYA FCC JONES

The trio of APC, INEC and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, disappointed even their most fanatical supporters with the very weak defence they put up in the petitions filed by the popularly acclaimed winner of the election, Mr. Peter Obi and the popularly acclaimed runner-up, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

INEC originally scheduled to bring three witnesses to prove that the election they conducted was free and fair and that their declaration of Bola Tinubu as the winner was correct, but after their first witness failed to turn up on the scheduled date, their only witness, a Pastor, was decimated by Peter Obi’s legal team, who left him feeling disappointed with himself. With that embarrassing outing, INEC knew that it would be unnecessary bringing any more witnesses as it became clearer to them that they have an impossible and senseless defence on the back of Peter Obi’s compelling evidence and arguments before the court.

For Tinubu and his running mate, Shettima, they had more work to do. One was to prove that the man at the top of the ticket is qualified, ab initio to stand as a candidate in the election, given numerous controversies bogging his age, origin, academics, works and a case of criminal forfeiture of narcotics linked funds and other issues, including the double nomination of Shettima who was as at the time he was filed in as the vice-presidential candidate, a Senatorial candidate of the same Party for Borno South.

Tinubu and Shettima didn’t bother advancing any arguments to counter Peter Obi’s overwhelming evidence that the election was brazenly manipulated and the provisions of the Electoral Act were breached by the INEC in declaring Tinubu winner of the election. For them, their joker is the purported evidence that Peter Obi wasn’t a member of the Labour Party as at the time the LP submitted its membership register to INEC. What they could not prove is that Peter Obi was not a member of the Party as at the time he became the Party’s flag-bearer sometime in May. Of course, Peter Obi was a bonafide member of the Party, and it is only the LP which can say who was its member and who wasn’t and there is no provision in either the Electoral Act or the Constitution which forbids one from joining a political Party even a day before he or she becomes a nominee of that Party for election. It is left for the LP to prove that Peter Obi joined the Party after it had submitted its membership register and that it met the requirements of the Electoral Act in nominating him as a presidential candidate.
The APC, INEC and Tinubu lost the case during Peter Obi’s presentations in court and the witnesses they scheduled to appear all ran away because it became obvious to them that they were going to face huge embarrassments from Peter Obi’s legal team. An INEC that couldn’t read the figures in a document it purportedly used in declaring someone winner of an election couldn’t go on embarrassing itself in the court and Tinubu and APC who already knew they are holding a stolen mandate couldn’t bear further embarrassments in court, hence, their hurried closure of their defence.

Peter Obi’s legal team has done its job and done it well and the defence teams of Tinubu, Shettima, INEC and APC have already conceded losing the case by not following through on their defence, but Nigerians and the world are watching and waiting to see what the judges will come up with.

TRUTH MUST WIN!