Four Years After, Obi Can’t Produce Evidence He Won 2023 Presidential Election

…NDC candidate insists victory claim needs no proof, despite tribunal, Supreme Court verdicts

By John Paul
Nearly four years after Nigeria’s disputed 2023 presidential election, Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) standard-bearer Peter Obi has again claimed that he won the poll but acknowledged that he has no evidence to substantiate the assertion.

Obi, who finished third in the official results of the election, made the admission during an interview with the BBC when pressed to explain the basis for his longstanding claim that he, rather than President Bola Tinubu, won the contest.

Asked directly whether he still maintained that he won the election despite the failure of his legal challenge, the former Anambra State governor stood by his position.

“Well, quite frankly, I don’t like going back to the past. I still say what I said,” Obi said.

But when pressed on whether he had evidence to establish that he actually won, Obi replied: “There is no evidence. Everything is not based on evidence. I won the election, and that is where I will end.”

The declaration is significant because Obi had repeatedly insisted after the February 25, 2023 election that he had won the contest and would prove his claim through the judicial process.

Less than a week after the election, Obi publicly rejected the result and declared that he had won, promising to demonstrate his case in court.

Official results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission showed that Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, won the election with 8,794,726 votes.

Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party finished second with 6,984,520 votes, while Obi, who contested on the Labour Party platform, came third with 6,101,533 votes.

Obi subsequently approached the Presidential Election Petition Court, challenging Tinubu’s victory and alleging widespread irregularities and other violations of the electoral process.

However, in September 2023, the tribunal dismissed Obi’s petition after holding that he failed to establish the allegations and grounds upon which he sought to overturn Tinubu’s election.

Obi took the battle to the Supreme Court, but the apex court in October 2023 dismissed his appeal and affirmed Tinubu’s election. Atiku’s challenge was similarly rejected.

Observers note that Obi’s latest comments mark a striking departure from his post-election pledge to prove that he won, but almost four years later, he continues to assert victory while conceding that he has no evidence to support the claim.