Peter Obi has maintained that he won the 2023 presidential election despite admitting he has no evidence to substantiate the claim.
Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, has maintained that he won the election despite admitting that he has no evidence to substantiate the claim.
Obi made the statement in a BBC interview while responding to a question about whether he still believed he won the election after Nigerian courts dismissed his challenge to the results.
‘I still say what I said’
Asked whether he stood by his claim, Obi said he did not want to dwell on the past but maintained his position.
“Well, quite frankly, I don’t like going back to the past. I still say what I said,” he said.
When pressed on whether he had evidence to prove that he won, Obi replied: “There is no evidence. Everything is not based on evidence. I won the election, and that is where I will end.”
Obi contested the February 2023 presidential election on the Labour Party platform and finished third with 6,101,533 votes. Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress won with 8,794,726 votes, while Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party came second with 6,984,520 votes, according to INEC’s official results.
Obi’s election challenge
Shortly after the election, Obi claimed he had won and said he would prove it in court. He subsequently challenged the result before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, alleging irregularities in the conduct of the election.
The tribunal dismissed his petition in September 2023, finding that the allegations brought before it had not been established to the required standard.
The Supreme Court later upheld Tinubu’s victory in October 2023 after considering the appeals by Obi and Atiku.
Obi’s latest comments therefore revive his longstanding position on the 2023 election, even as he acknowledges that he does not have evidence to support his claim.
