On Friday, May 19, 2023, a Twitter user claimed that security personnel prevented supporters of Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party, from accessing the Presidential Election Tribunal Court.
This is as the pre-hearing in the petition by Obi and the LP against Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, continues today at the Appeal court.
As of the time of filing this report, the tweet has garnered over 53,000 views, and has been shared on other social media platforms.
Claim: Security agents prevented Peter Obi’s supporters from accessing the Presidential Election Tribunal Court.
Verification
The CDD Election War Room was present at the Court of Appeal and can thus confirm that all the political parties involved in the lawsuit—the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the Labour Party (LP)— have an assigned number of supporters who were granted access to represent them, and that all the party representatives with tags were admitted into Tribunal Court.
The party supporters protesting outside the courtroom do not have access tags and could not be granted access due to the limited capacity of the court.
Verdict: Misleading
The claim that Peter Obi’s supporters were denied access to the Tribunal court is misleading. We can confirm that the representatives of the party with access tags were allowed into the courtroom.
Leave a Reply