Can Peter Obi again alter Nigeria’s election calendar?

The court trenches are certainly not foreign terrain to Peter Obithe Labor Party (LP) presidential candidate in the February 25 general election.

About 20 years ago, Mr. Obi contested the April 19, 2003 governorship election in Anambra State at the summit of the newly registered All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). After Chris Ngige of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was declared the winner of the race by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mr. Obi rejected the result and went to court for compensation where he noted his historic success.

On Monday March 13, Mr. Obi stated that he will not accept the results of this year’s presidential race announced by INEC because, according to him, it is not God’s will for the country. He expressed his readiness to challenge the process by which the election referee declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner. Mr. Obi made the statement during an interview on Arise News TV. He had a week before addressed a press conference admitting that he actually won the election and was ready to prove his claim in court.

The electoral commission, INEC, had in the early hours of March 1, 2023 announced Mr. Tinubu as the winner of the election.
Mr. Tinubu defeated 17 other candidates who participated in the election. He received a total of 8,794,726 votes, the highest of all candidates, thus meeting the first constitutional requirement to be declared the winner.

He also won more than 25 percent of the vote in 29 states, more than the 24 states required by the constitution. INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu, a professor of History who announced the final result in Abuja, Atiku said
Abubakar of the PDP came second in the election. Atiku polled with a total of 6,984,520 votes in the election while Mr. Obi of the LP came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.

But both Atiku and Obi have since rejected the results as announced by INEC as each has claimed to have won the election and vowed to challenge the exercise in court.

As for Mr. Obi, he seems to fit the complex contours of the judicial process. He is the beneficiary of the judicial process in Nigeria’s electoral history. After two years and 11 months of judicial fireworks, Mr. Ngige’s tenure as Governor of Anambra State ended on a dramatic note on March 15, 2003 when, in a unanimous decision, a five-member panel of the Court of Appeal overturned his victory and affirmed. Mr. Obi was the winner of the April 2003 governorship election in the state.

In the judgment, the appeal court upheld the lower court’s decision that Mr. Obi should be declared the winner and sworn in as the governor of Anambra State who was duly elected on May 29, 2003. The judgment was the result of Mr. Obi’s efforts. orders through the judicial process despite daunting odds.

Mr. Obi was sworn in as governor on March 17, 2006 making Anambra the first state to change the governorship transition calendar in the state as he was the first candidate to oust a governor through the judicial process. However, less than eight months after he was sworn in as governor, Mr. Obi was impeached and removed from office by the state House of Representatives on November 2, 2006.

His deputy, Virginia Etiaba, was sworn in as substantive governor in his place the next day, November 3, 2006, making her the first female state governor in Nigeria.

For the second time, Mr. Obi approached the court. Then, it is to challenge his impeachment. He said he had done nothing wrong to warrant his removal. While in the court trying to seize the mandate, the process for the 2007 governor is in the best gear. She won the Enugu Division of the Court of Appeal and was reinstated as governor on February 9, 2007. Mrs. Etiaba relinquished power in the state and returned to her previous position as deputy governor.

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Also read: Peter Obi insists presidential poll results are not God’s will

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Mr. Obi was advised to collect and submit his nomination form as the candidate of his party (APGA) for the fast approaching governorship election, but he refused, as he still has three more years to run as governor.
just one year in office after Mr. Ngige was sacked by the appeals court. His stance sparked controversy in Anambra State and across the country then with some commentators criticizing him for overstretching his destiny while others urged him not to shy away from the electoral contest he hopes to win. But Mr. Obi stuck to his guns by avoiding the 2007 governorship polls even as he called for a contest.

In line with popular expectations, Mr. Obi lost his governorship for the third time when he had to leave office on May 29, 2007. After the governorship election on April 14, 2007, he stayed away from illegal premises in the state. , the PDP candidate, Andy Uba, was declared the winner by INEC and was subsequently sworn in as governor on May 29, 2007.

Mr. Obi continued with the pending case in court, oblivious to the upcoming governorship election. His main claim is that his four-year tenure he is entitled to as a result of the victory he restored in
The April 19, 2003 election only started when he assumed office on March 17, 2006. On June 14, 2007, the Supreme Court in a landmark judgment upheld Mr. Obi’s claim by sacking Mr. Uba and reinstating Mr. Obi as governor. The verdict brought a dramatic end to Mr. Uba’s tenure and paved the way for Mr. Obi to complete his four-year tenure on March 17, 2010.

Mr. Obi contested again and was re-elected. He served his second term without a hitch on March 17, 2014 when he handed over to his successor, Willie Obiano.

Mr. Obi’s court battle not only made Anambra the first state in Nigeria to have governorship elections in the fall, but also opened the floodgates for others such as Kogi, Osun, Ekiti, Bayelsa, Edo, Ondo and Imo to follow the same trajectory.

Reiterating his respect for traditional rulers and religious leaders, in an interview with Arise Television on Saturday, the former governor of Anambra State disagreed with the narrative that the results of the recent polls were pronounced by INEC as the will of God for Nigeria.

“I have a lot of respect for them (traditional rulers and religious leaders) and I think they should be respected for what they represent in society. But I don’t agree with them. What they are really preaching is Nigeria’s problem. Nigeria’s problem is accepting wrongdoing. and accept what cannot be accepted.

“It’s using God’s name in vain. That’s not what God said. God said don’t take my name in vain. So, what he said is not God’s will, not God’s plan for Nigeria… That’s not God’s will. God’s will
is that if you do the right thing, it will be good.”

He said Nigeria has laws that guide the conduct of elections and it is not the will of God that they should be violated.

“We have a clear law on electoral conduct; it is not God’s will if we do something wrong. We want God’s will to be God’s true will… What is God’s will if we steal or make a wrong election?” he asked.

Although previously viewed by experts as a structure-less underdog in the race, Mr. Obi polled over six million votes in the presidential election. He also won in 12 states (including Abuja), the same number as the president-elect, Mr. Tinubu, and Atiku.

In an interview on Arise TV, Mr. Obi sought the cooperation of INEC for the election petition.

“INEC is a public institution and it should be open. Because if you do something and people are not satisfied, then you have to open yourself,” he said.

“INEC has conducted the election and declared the winner, but I am only asking for access to the material used to get the result. I am not asking you to change your words.

“I’m not challenging the declaration. Or, I’m not challenging who made it. I’m not challenging whatever the outcome is. I’m challenging the process by which they arrived at the declaration.

“And if we don’t do it, we will not stop the rascality that we witnessed in the election. The process by which people go to office is more basic than what they do after… There is a process to do things, reach every place. The process is important,” said Mr. Obi.

By challenging the presidential election in court, Mr. Obi, like Atiku, sought to achieve what the losing presidential candidate could not.

Since the beginning of the current democratic dispensation 24 years ago, no candidate has been able to challenge the results of the presidential election. Will Obi tilt the apple cart? The previous president
Elections in 2007, 2011 and 2019 were unsuccessfully contested despite electoral shortcomings.

The current president, Muhammadu Buhari, challenged the 2007 and 2011 presidential elections in court. The runner-up in this year’s presidential election, Atiku, who also ran four years ago, challenged in 2019 but also failed in court. In the battle that will come to court for this year’s contest, Atiku and Mr. Obi are the main dramatic figures.

While many Nigerians may have lost faith in the nation’s judiciary due to some controversial court rulings in recent years, Mr. Obi does not seem to share that pessimism.

The constant question on the lips of many analysts and observers is, will Mr. Obi get an encore by changing the Nigerian presidential election calendar like he did in the governorship 20 years ago?