Nigeria: Two main opposition leaders challenge presidential election results, file court petition

Nigeria’s two main opposition leaders — Labor Party’s Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar from People’s Democratic Party (PDP) — on Tuesday March21 filed court petitions seeking to invalidate results of last month’s disputed presidential election that was won by the ruling party.

Both opposition leaders said in separate affidavits the election was fraught with irregularities and accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of breaching the law by failing to use electronic machines to upload polling station results, among other criticisms. Obi and Atiku asked for an order “canceling the presidential election” and for the INEC to conduct a fresh vote.

The president-elect Bola Tinubu has defended the election as credible. But election observers from the European Union, the Commonwealth and other groups reported a range of problems, among them failures in systems designed to prevent vote manipulation.

Obi, who campaigned as an outsider, galvanized many young and first-time voters but came third in the election, behind Tinubu and Atiku, both of whom had powerful political machines and decades of networking behind them.

This presidential race was seen as the most competitive in Nigeria’s political history, with Obi and Kwankwaso posing a credible challenge to the two traditional main parties. While the court petitions have triggered what could be a legal battle lasting several months, there have been numerous legal challenges to the outcome of previous Nigerian presidential elections, but none has succeeded.