On Tuesday, four candidates for president filed separate cases with the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal in Abuja asking for the proclamation of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the presidential election on February 25 to be overruled.

Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Solomon Okangbuan of the Action Alliance, and Chichi Ojei of the Allied People’s Movement are among the petitioners who want Tinubu’s election as president-elect to be thrown out.

With 6,984,520 votes, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party came in second, and Obi took third with 6,101,533.

Respondents to the petition filed by Obi and LP were INEC, Tinubu, Shettima Kashim, his running mate, and the APC.

Obi continued in the petition by claiming that Tinubu “was not legitimately elected by majority of the valid votes cast at the time of the election.”

At the declaration of results based on the uploaded results, Obi asserted that there was rigging in 11 states and promised to show this.

“The petitioners shall show that in the computation and declaration of the result of the election, based on the updated results, the votes recorded for the second respondent (Tinubu) did not comply with the legitimate process for the computation of the result and disfavored the petitioners in the following states: Rivers, Lagos, Taraba, Benue, Adamawa, Imo, Bauchi, Borno, Kaduna, Plateau, and other states of the federation,” the petition stated.

Even though all of the polling unit results had not yet been fully scanned, uploaded, and transferred electronically as required by the Electoral Act at the time of the release, Obi and LP claimed INEC broke its own rules when it made the statement.

The petitioners asked the tribunal to “find that the second and third respondents (Tinubu and Shettima) at the time of the presidential election held on February 25, 2023, were not entitled to contest the election,” among other things.

“That it be decided that all of the votes cast in the election for the second respondent were wasted votes because the second and third responders were disqualified.

“That it be determined that on the basis of the remaining votes (after discountenancing the votes credited to the second respondent) the first petitioner (Obi) scored a majority of the lawful votes cast at the election and had not less than 25 per cent of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and satisfied the constitutional requirements to be declared the winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential election.

“That it be determined that the second respondent (Tinubu), having failed to score one-quarter of the votes cast at the presidential election in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, was not entitled to be declared and returned as the winner of the presidential election held on February 25, 2023.’’

Okangbuan and Ojei, respectively, are contesting the results of the presidential election in the lawsuits with the case numbers CA/PEPC/03/2023 and CA/PEPC/04/2023 on the grounds of alleged material non-compliance with the electoral laws and INEC guidelines.

The AA argued that because its candidate was disqualified, the election should be declared invalid.

For its part, the APM asserted that due to the requirements of sections 131(c) and 142 of the Constitution and section 35 of the Electoral Act 2022, Tinubu was not eligible to run in the election at the time of the election.

Okangbuan and Ojei, respectively, are contesting the results of the presidential election in the lawsuits with the case numbers CA/PEPC/03/2023 and CA/PEPC/04/2023 on the grounds of alleged material non-compliance with the electoral process.