By Okoi Obono-Obla
I read with utter consternation the report credited to Mr. Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and former candidate of the Labour Party, wherein he declared in a BBC Africa interview that he won the February 25, 2023 presidential election but has no evidence to prove it.
With respect, this is the most infantile, puerile and intellectually unsound statement I have heard from a man who aspires to lead Nigeria.
It is a statement unworthy of a former Governor, a former presidential candidate, and a man who should know better.
Let us be clear on what the law says. Our law is settled and elementary: he who asserts must prove. Section 135 of the Evidence Act places the burden squarely on the claimant. An election is not won in the realm of dreams, emotions, or personal conviction. It is won by lawful votes counted, collated and declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission. The courts do not deal in conjectures. They deal in evidence.
Mr. Obi had his day in court. He petitioned the Presidential Election Petitions Court. The Court dismissed his petition on the 6th of September, 2023 for lack of evidence. He went to the Supreme Court, the final court of the land. On the 26th of October, 2023, the Supreme Court also dismissed his appeal for want of merit. The judiciary spoke with finality.
For the same man to now go on international television to say, “There’s no evidence. Everything is not based on evidence” but “I won the election,” is not just contradictory – it is a vicious and calculated attack on the integrity of the establishment and the judiciary.
What is he telling Nigerians? That the courts that found he had no evidence were wrong? That INEC’s declaration is irrelevant? That belief is superior to proof?
This is textbook rabble-rousing. It is a cynical attempt to whip up emotional frenzy among impressionable masses, to keep alive a dangerous illusion that a mandate was stolen, even when you admit you cannot prove it. It is a politics of grievance without facts, entitlement without evidence.
If you have no evidence, your case is dead on arrival. That is what every first-year law student knows. If you claim you were rigged out but you know you have no evidence to substantiate it, why do you still cling to the entitlement? Why do you continue to parade yourself as the rightful winner?
Leadership demands responsibility. A man who wants to be President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must understand that words have consequences. When you tell millions of your supporters that you won but the system denied you, and in the same breath admit you have no evidence, you are poisoning the public space. You are delegitimizing the very institutions you seek to preside over – INEC, the judiciary, the presidency itself.
You cannot be President of a country whose institutions you daily undermine with unsubstantiated claims.
I unreservedly condemn this latest outburst. It is reckless, it is unstatesmanlike, and it is unpatriotic. The 2023 election has been won and lost. The courts have spoken. Those who aspire to contest in 2027 should tell Nigerians what they will do differently, not regurgitate debunked claims of victory without proof.
Nigeria deserves a politics of ideas, evidence and reason – not a politics of emotional blackmail and mob incitement.
If you won, prove it. If you cannot prove it, you did not win. That is the law. That is common sense.
