Abuja · Friday 11 September 2026
Peter Obi has said he won the 2023 presidential election and that he has proof the former INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, worked against him. He made the claim in interviews carried on Thursday. At least one outlet reported it with the note that no evidence was produced.
The difficulty with the claim as stated
It is not that it is implausible. Nigerian elections have produced enough documented irregularity for the suspicion to be reasonable. The difficulty is the specific form of the statement: possession of proof, asserted publicly, without the proof.
What was already litigated
| Forum | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Presidential Election Petition Court | Petitions dismissed |
| Supreme Court | Appeal dismissed |
| Public argument | Ongoing, three years on |
The legal route closed in 2023. The political one never does.
The courts heard the case and rejected it. That is a fact about the judgment, not a demonstration that nothing went wrong. Nigerians can hold both thoughts, and many do, which is why this argument has survived three years and will survive the next campaign too.
If the evidence exists it should be published. If it is being saved for a moment, then it is being used as a strategy rather than as proof.
What Okowa said in the same week
Ifeanyi Okowa, Atiku Abubakar's running mate in 2023, has said he knew the PDP ticket would lose before results were announced. Two senior figures from the same election, in the same week, offering incompatible accounts of what actually happened.
The thing that would move this forward
Publication. Documents, dates, and a named allegation somebody can answer. Obi has larger reach than almost any opposition figure in Nigeria and could put the material in front of the public tomorrow.
Until he does, the claim will function the way it functioned on Thursday: as a headline, in a week when the newer story is his own party finally getting its logo onto the INEC website.
Reporting: Arise News, Sahara Reporters, Daily Post and BarristerNG.
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