22nd March, 2023
Festus Keyamo, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment has said issues raised in the petition filed by Peter Obi of Labour Party against the outcome of the February 25 2023 presidential election will be an opportunity to clear unfounded allegations against President-elect, Bola Tinubu.
Obi had in the petition filed by him and his party at the Election Tribunal demanded nullification of the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu of All Progressives Congress, APC, as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
The Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmud Yakubu had on 1 March declared Tinubu the winner of the 2023 presidential election with 8, 794, 726 votes.
He defeated his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 6,984, 520 votes, while Peter Obi came third in the election with total score of 6,101,533 votes.
Despite placing distant third, Obi on Tuesday filed a petition at the tribunal to nullify the election.
In their petition dated March 20, Obi claimed he is the winner of the election and that Tinubu did not score the highest number of votes at the election.
He had also alleged that Tinubu was not qualified to contest for the election and he should be barred from recontesting if the Tribunal ordered for the reconduct of the election.
The former Anambra governor claimed that he will demonstrate how he won the election during the proceedings of the Tribunal
But in his reaction to the petition, Keyamo a Senior Advocate of Nigeria said the hearing of petitions of Obi will be an opportunity to debunk deceit, lies and disinformation about Tinubu.
Keyamo said this in a post on his social media handle early Sunday morning.
He wrote, “I am excited about the issues raised in those Election Petitions. All the deceit & lies & disinformation & misinformation about otherwise very simple and clear issues are about to be busted by our Law Lords. Whoever continues to argue after that should relocate to another planet.
“Nigerians will finally see a huge difference between calm, dispassionate adjudication of issues and all the hoopla caused by garrulous spokespersons shaking and falling on stage, ignorant TV hosts turned debaters, misinformed documentaries, illiterate tweeps and some dancing Hijabi mamas.”