Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate Peter Obi has insisted that he won the 2023 presidential election despite admitting that he has no evidence to substantiate the claim.
Obi made the remark in a recent BBC Africa interview while responding to a question on whether he could prove his long-standing assertion that he won the election.
Asked if he had evidence to prove his claim, Obi replied, “There’s no evidence,” before maintaining that he won the election.
“I won the election, and that’s where I will end it,” he said.
Obi was also questioned about his repeated allegation that the 2023 election was rigged despite the rejection of his legal challenge by the courts.
He said he did not like dwelling on the past but maintained his position on the election.
Obi contested the February 25, 2023 presidential election on the platform of the Labour Party and finished third behind Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar in the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
He secured 6,101,533 votes, while the Presidential Election Petition Court dismissed his petition on September 6, 2023. The Supreme Court subsequently dismissed his appeal on October 26, 2023.
Obi has, however, continued to maintain that he won the election.
In September, he said he would continue to maintain, “as long as I live”, that he won the 2023 poll, while also saying he would accept defeat in 2027 if the election was free, fair and credible.
He had earlier acknowledged that his campaign made mistakes in 2023.
“In 2023, we took things for granted,” Obi said in an Arise Television interview, explaining that his team had trusted INEC to fulfil its commitments.
He said his campaign would take a different approach in 2027 by independently monitoring the electoral process.
The former Anambra State governor has since intensified calls for opposition supporters to protect their votes in the next election.
Speaking during a digital town hall on Sunday, he urged his supporters to ensure that polling agents were deployed to every polling unit and remained there until votes were counted.
Obi said his team was building its agent network and working with other political parties to promote credible elections.
Asked whether he would withdraw from the 2027 presidential race if opposition parties agreed on another candidate, he said only that “we need to do the right thing”.
Obi’s latest comments have drawn criticism from former Special Adviser to the President on Prosecution, Okoi Obono-Obla, who described the position as contradictory and an attack on the credibility of Nigeria’s electoral and judicial institutions.
In an opinion article titled, “Obi’s Dangerous Assault on Logic, Democracy and Judiciary”, Obono-Obla argued that the burden was on Obi to prove his allegation.
“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,” he wrote.
He added, “The courts do not deal in conjectures. They deal in evidence.”
Obono-Obla also recalled that Obi challenged the 2023 result before the Presidential Election Petition Court and subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court.
“For the same man to now go on international television to say, ‘There’s no evidence’ but ‘I won the election,’ is not just contradictory,” he said, describing the position as an attempt to undermine the credibility of the judiciary.
He urged politicians preparing for the 2027 election to focus on their programmes rather than continue revisiting the disputed 2023 poll.
“The 2023 election has been won and lost. The courts have spoken,” Obono-Obla said.
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