Fresh Heartbreak For ‘Obidients’ As Rivers LP Chairman Gives Strong Reason Why Peter Obi Can’t Win At Supreme Court
The Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, has been advised not to allocate further resources towards appealing the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) at the Supreme Court against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Obi’s legal team has been criticized for failing to present sufficient facts and evidence at the Tribunal, resulting in the party and its presidential candidate losing the case.
In an exclusive interview with Vanguard in Port Harcourt, Rivers state capital, the chairman of the Labour Party, Hon Dienye Pepple, expressed that Obi’s insistence on appealing the initial judgment was a misguided decision that would ultimately result in a waste of time, energy, and resources.
“Every party has the right to appeal. The truth is that and I must be realistic to you, I don’t see anything coming out of that case because base on the judgment that the Tribunal gave, if you take time to analyze it, you will see that our party did not present our case well.
“Yes, we have a lot of evidences but those evidences were not well registered at the tribunal. They just took the result sheets and dumped them somewhere there. The lawyers of Peter Obi and that of the labour Party did not do their jobs well. One thing about the court is that they don’t believe in social media noise or people’s opinion. There must be facts to prove your point.
“The legal team did not prove their case well. Going to the Supreme Court will be a job in futility. The party did not even pay its agents. Former LP national chairman, Julius Abule refused to release money to pay the agents. That was why the agents have refused to come out and testify. The legal team and Abule killed the chances of the party at the court”.
Pepple claimed that he had to personally pay the agents just to get the results sheets from them. “I had to personally paid the agents to release some result sheets to me which I took to Abuja. There is nothing to prove that our result was reduced. What figure did we score and what figure was it reduced to? What are the evidences that we won the election? Nobody wins election without releasing money to the agents and LP did not do so”.
They are likely to approach the Supreme Court case in the same manner as they did with the tribunal case. I don’t anticipate any significant deviation. It seems like a futile endeavor.
In my opinion, Obi emerged victorious in the election. However, this is a legal matter that isn’t influenced by personal beliefs. The legal system places its faith in concrete evidence and established facts.
He called on the national leadership of the LP to begin preparations for the 2027 general elections where the party hopes to do better. “We have to go back and look at where we made mistakes so that in 2027 we can be well prepared. Obi’s coming into the Labour Party was a bit late. Now we have room to prepare very well”, he said.
