Presidential Candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has submitted that President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima’s reference to “anarchy” against the legal decision of their petition is dangerous and low.
Obi and LP’s submission is contained in the final written addresses in reply to the copies earlier filed by Tinubu and Shettima before the Presidential Election Petitions Court.
Tinubu and Shettima had also stated in reaction to not scoring 25 percent in the FCT that it is not the position of the law, maintaining that “any other interpretation different from this will lead to absurdity, chaos, anarchy and alteration of the very intention of the legislature.”
In the 42-page address signed by the lead counsel to Obi and LP, Livi Uzoukwu (SAN), pointed out that Tinubu and Shettima “went too low and abandoned discretion when they claimed as follows: ‘Our submission is that the petitioners are inviting anarchy by their ventilation of this issue of non-transmission of results electronically, by INEC.’
Obi and LP said, “This is a cheap, misguided, and destructive blackmail clearly intended to target the country’s judicialism and constitutionalism. It also aims at cannibalizing our democracy.
“It will also raise the issue of insecurity if the petitioners emulate the bad example of the 2nd-3rd respondents (Tinubu and Shettima). However, that will never happen. When has it become offensive for petitioners to canvass a ground prescribed for the challenge of an election in Section 134(1)(b) of the Electoral Act 2022? Desperation taken too far can be extremely dangerous. Let the 2nd-3rd Respondents know that where the rule of law is trampled upon or truncated, anarchy reigns supreme.”
