A chieftain of the Labour Party, Dr Abayomi Arabambi, has challenged former presidential candidate Peter Obi to substantiate his continued claim that he won the 2023 presidential election, insisting that electoral victories cannot be established through political declarations without credible evidence.

Arabambi made the submission on Thursday, October 8, 2026, while speaking on Frontline, a current affairs programme on Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese-Ijebu, Ogun State. He said election petitions must be determined by the grounds contained in the petition and the evidence presented before the court, rather than by the strength of political arguments made outside the courtroom.

His comments followed Obi’s recent interview with the BBC, in which the former Anambra State governor maintained that he won the 2023 presidential election but acknowledged that he had no evidence to substantiate the claim. Obi reportedly told the BBC that “there’s no evidence” and that “everything is not based on evidence,” before insisting that he still believed he won the election. 

Reacting to the development, Arabambi said anyone who approaches a court to challenge an election must be prepared to establish the allegations contained in the petition. He argued that political claims, public sentiment and personal conviction cannot substitute for the documents, witnesses and other materials required to prove an election petition.

“You cannot just say you won an election; you must be able to prove it with evidence,” Arabambi said, stressing that documents tendered before a court must also be properly established and verified through the appropriate authorities.

The Labour Party chieftain maintained that the outcome of an election case is not determined by the amount of money spent on litigation but by the quality of evidence placed before the court. According to him, “The court is not going to determine an election based on how much money you spend on the petition, but based on the evidence before it.”

The 2023 presidential election was won by Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress with 8,794,726 votes, while Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party came second with 6,984,520 votes and Obi, who contested on the Labour Party platform, finished third with 6,101,533 votes. INEC recorded 24,025,940 valid votes from 93,469,008 registered voters, with 25,286,616 accredited voters. 

Obi and the Labour Party subsequently challenged the result before the Presidential Election Petitions Court, while Atiku and the PDP also challenged Tinubu’s victory. The Presidential Election Petitions Court dismissed the petitions in September 2023, after which the Supreme Court in October 2023 dismissed the appeals and affirmed Tinubu’s election. 

Arabambi argued that the legal history of the case makes the question of evidence particularly important, saying a petitioner must demonstrate how the evidence presented before the court establishes the allegations contained in the petition. He said this was especially significant because election disputes are decided on the basis of legally admissible and properly authenticated materials.

The former Labour Party spokesperson also questioned the party’s preparedness for the 2023 election, particularly the deployment of polling agents and the documentation of results from polling units. He claimed that out of the 176,000 polling units across the country, the Labour Party did not have agents in about 56,000 of them.

Arabambi further claimed that the party had only 4,859 coalition agents out of 9,551 required and alleged that results from more than 23,000 polling units where the party had no agents were submitted. He questioned how such results could be sufficiently established when party representatives were not present to participate in or authenticate the process.

“How do you establish results from polling units where you had no agents to participate in and authenticate the process?” he asked.

He also alleged that the party failed to tabulate its results in line with the Electoral Act and did not directly ask the tribunal to declare Obi the winner of the presidential election. Arabambi said these issues demonstrated what he described as weaknesses in the party’s preparation for the legal battle that followed the election.

The Labour Party chieftain said the experience should serve as a lesson ahead of the 2027 general elections, urging political parties to strengthen their structures at polling-unit level and ensure that results are properly documented from the point of voting through collation.

On the controversy surrounding Obi’s academic credentials, Arabambi said his interest was to ensure that relevant documents were subjected to proper verification through the judicial process. He insisted that his action was not about making political conclusions but about establishing what he described as the facts surrounding the documents.

“I went to court. I only asked, where is the documentation? They have not produced anything. The registrar will come to court,” he said.

The issue drew reactions from callers, with one caller from Ijebu-Ode questioning Arabambi’s motivation for pursuing the certificate matter. The caller asked why similar controversies involving past political leaders had not received the same level of attention and also challenged Arabambi to explain whether President Tinubu had fulfilled the promises made to Nigerians.

Another listener accused Arabambi of being motivated by personal grievances against Obi, arguing that his criticism would not change the former Anambra governor’s standing among his supporters. Arabambi, however, maintained that his position was based on principle and due process and that political personalities should not be placed above scrutiny.

He also said the Labour Party must resolve its internal weaknesses and improve its election preparation before 2027, particularly by ensuring that it has properly trained agents across polling units and an effective system for collating results. For Arabambi, the major lesson from 2023 is that political claims must be matched with documentary evidence capable of surviving judicial scrutiny.