President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima submitted a copy of the Labour Party membership register for Anambra State as evidence to support their claim that Peter Obi is not a registered member of the party.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that Tinubu and Shettima, in response to the petition filed by Obi and the Labour Party, said that Obi, who allegedly wasn’t a party member during the last presidential election, was ineligible to contest the election under Labour Party.
During the defence proceedings at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), their legal representative, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), presented the membership register along with a letter from the Labour Party, dated April 25, 2022, which was addressed to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as supporting documents.
Tinubu and Shettima has claimed that Mr. Obi purportedly resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on May 26, 2022, only to join the Labour Party (LP) on May 27, 2022.
According to them, LP held its Presidential Primary election on May 30, 2022, where Mr. Obi emerged as the candidate for the general election.
The counsel for Tinubu and Shettima argues that according to Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act, they were obligated to submit their comprehensive register of members to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) 30 days before their presidential primary. This implies that the register should have been submitted to INEC on or before April 30, 2022.
They claim that as of April 30, 2022, Mr. Obi was still a member of the PDP, and his name was not included in the register of members submitted by the LP to INEC.
In defense, Mr. Obi’s counsel argues that he was indeed a member of the PDP when he contested the presidential election under LP.
Although objections were raised by the petitioners’ lawyer, Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), the court admitted the documents as Exhibits RA17 and RA18.
