The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) has held that the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, failed to provide proof of a criminal conviction against President Bola Tinubu.

The petitioners had prayed the court to nullify Mr Tinubu’s election because a $460,000 forfeiture order was against him by a United States District Court in Illinois.

In his lead judgment on Wednesday in Abuja, Justice Haruna Tsammani held that Mr Obi and his party failed to substantiate allegations of fraud and drug dealings against Mr Tinubu.

The tribunal maintained that Mr Tinubu was duly qualified to contest the February 25 presidential election.

It maintained that the petitioners failed to prove that the president was found guilty of any offence involving any act of criminality.

The PEPC held that the evidence before the court showed that the forfeiture order against Mr Tinubu was civil and not criminal.

The court said there was no evidence that the president was either arraigned or convicted in the U.S. over any alleged crime to warrant disqualification.

The court opined that the documents tendered by the respondents confirmed that Mr Tinubu was given a clean bill of health upon an enquiry from Nigeria.

“The petitioners have failed to establish their allegation that Tinubu is disqualified from contesting the presidential election under Section 137 (1) (d) of the 1999 Constitution because he was fined $460,000 by a district court in Illinois, USA.

“The order of forfeiture in exhibit P5 on which the petitioners have relied does not qualify as a sentence or fine or criminal conviction,” the court said.

The court further held that section 269(1&2) provides that such documents must be given under the hand of a police official and must be accompanied by a certificate showing that the police officer has the power to sign such documents.

The court also said that even if Mr Tinubu was convicted for the alleged crime for him to be disqualified from the 2023 election, the purported conviction must have taken place within 10 years before the election.

Meanwhile, the forfeiture order was made nearly three decades ago.

The court also dismissed the claim by Obi and the LP that the election that produced Mr Tinubu did not comply with the Electoral Act, 2022 on grounds that the results of the election were not transmitted in real-time to the INEC’s Results Viewing (IReV) portals.

The PEPC also said nowhere in the Electoral Act that said elections must be electronically transmitted for collation.

The court noted that sections 14 and 18 of the Electoral Act provided for the use of the Bi-modal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) to accredit voters.

Justice Tsammani said the IReV was not a collation system.

The court is currently making pronouncements on other areas where the petitioners were challenging the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.

 (NAN)