Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25, election and first petitioner in the ongoing case at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), Peter Obi, has replied to the threat of anarchy claimed by the All Progressives Congress (APC), the second and third respondents in the petition, President Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shetimma, who argued that if the court interprets the Electoral Act, Section 134 against them it might lead to breakdown of law and order.

It would be recalled that Tinubu’s legal team led by Wole Olanipekun had in their final address to the court at the weekend threatened that “any other interpretation different from theirs will lead to absurdity, chaos, anarchy and alteration of the very intention of the legislature.”

But Peter Obi’s lawyers led by Livy Uzoukwu and Onyechi Ikpeazu disagreed with them, saying that what would rather lead to anarchy is where the rule of law is trampled upon or truncated, pointing out that in such situations anarchy reigns supreme.

According to Obi’s legal team: “A sentence in the 2nd-3rd respondents’ address alarmed the petitioners and millions of Nigerians. The 2nd-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.’”

They noted that they found Tinubu’s outburst as “a cheap, misguided, and destructive blackmail clearly intended to target the country’s judicialism and constitutionalism. It also aims at cannibalizing our democracy.”

The legal team also noted that the careless and absurd statements of the second and third respondents intend to raise the issue of insecurity if the petitioners were to emulate the bad example of the second and third respondents, but remarked 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, the 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?

They attributed the needless flare-up and effusion of the respondents to desperation taken too far, which they said could be extremely dangerous.

“Let the 2nd-3rd respondents know that where the rule of law is trampled upon or truncated, anarchy reigns supreme!”

Sun