Tinubu: Appeal Court Said Peter Obi Can Not Be Disqualified For Joining Labour Party Late – Mahmud

It is well known that APC’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu who was declared winner of the presidential election has responded to the petition Labour Party’s Peter Obi filed in court challenging his victory. Tinubu in his prayers to the court argued that Obi’s candidacy breached the Electoral Act and that he should be disqualified. According to Tinubu, going by section 77 sub-section (2) and (3) of the Electoral Act, Obi was not validly sponsored by Labour Party in the presidential election because he joined the party after it had already submitted its list of registered members to INEC.

However, a legal practitioner, Abdul Mahmud has stated that the issue of Peter Obi not joining the Labour Party early enough has been before the Court of Appeal in a case involving the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and Peter Obi. He said the appellate court in its ruling said Obi met the requirement of section 131 of the Nigerian constitution that states what qualifies a person to run for president so he can’t be disqualified for not joining Labour Party before its list of registered members was sent to INEC

About 1:38 minutes into a video shared on YouTube by Aisha Yesufu, Mahmud said “The contention of APC is that as of when Obi left PDP the register of members of Labour Party had been submitted 29 days prior to when he left, so he was not a member of the Labour Party when he ran as an aspirant of the presidential primary of Labour Party. The issue of qualification for presidential candidates as stated in section 131 subsection (IC) of the Nigerian constitution says that for you to become a president of Nigeria, you must be a member of a political party and be sponsored by a political party

“In respect of the issues of section 131 of the Nigerian constitution and section 77 of the Electoral Act, the Court of Appeal in a recent decision involving Allied Peoples Movement against Peter Obi decided that you can not contract the grounds for qualification for president of Nigeria by using section 77 subsection 2 and 3 of the Electoral Act. The only qualifying ground is that specified in section 131 subsection 1C of Nigerian constitution: Are you a member of a political party? answer is yes then you can contest. Are you sponsored by a political party? answer is yes then you can run”

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