The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25, 2023 election and first petitioner in the on-going lawsuit at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), Mr. Peter Obi, has responded to the threat of anarchy from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shetimma that if the Court interprets Sectiin 134 of Electoral Act against them, it might lead to breakdown of law and order.
But Peter Obi’s lawyers led by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu SAN and Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu SAN disagreed with the assertion, saying that “what will instead lead to anarchy is where the rule of law is trampled upon or truncated”, stewssing that in such situations, “anarchy reigns supreme”.
Recall that Tinubu’s legal team, led by Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, had in their final address filed on behalf of Tinubu at the court, threatened that, “any other interpretation different from theirs will lead to absurdity, chaos, anarchy and alteration of the very intention of the legislature.”
However, according to Obi, “a sentence in the 2nd and 3rd respondents’ final address alarmed the petitioners and millions of Nigerians.
“The 2nd and 3rd respondents went too low and abandoned discretion when they claimed as follows: “Our submission is that the petitioners are inviting anarchy by their ventilation of this issue of non-transmission of results electronically, by INEC.”
Obi’s legal team noted that they found Tinubu’s outburst as “a cheap, misguided, and destructive blackmail clearly intended to target the country’s judiciary and constitutionalism. It also aims at cannibalizing our democracy”.
The legal team also stressed that the careless and absurd statements of the 2nd and 3rd respondents intend to raise the issue of insecurity if the petitioners were to emulate the bad example of the 2nd and 3rd respondents but, added that such will never happen because of the petitioner’s discipline and peaceful disposition and belief in the rule of law.
Still underscoring the pointlessness and the supererogatory of the respondent’s threat, Obi’s legal team wondered “when has it become offensive for petitioners to canvass a ground prescribed for the challenge of an election in section 134(1)(b) of the Electoral Act 2022″?
The legal luminaries attributed the needless flare-up and effusion of the respondents to desperation taken too far, which can be extremely dangerous.
“Let the 2nd and 3rd respondents know that where the rule of law is trampled upon or truncated, anarchy reigns supreme!”
