The presidential election petitions court PEPC held in Abuja on Friday ordered a copy of a petition to be served on president-elect Bola Tinubu to void his election with replacement funds.
The court, in a decision by his three-member committee headed by Judge Haruna Tsamani, ordered the petition to be served on Tinubu through his political party, the All Progressive Congress (APC).
He also ordered the petition to be sent not only to Ibrahim Masari, Tinubu's vice-president nominee in the February 25 presidential election, but also to incoming vice-president Senator Kassim Shetima.
The court's ruling followed his three separate unilateral petitions brought to trial by Atiku Abubakar of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of his Labor Party, and the United People's Movement (APM).
Atiku and Obi had accused the president-elect, his Tinubu, of deliberately avoiding having their petition submitted to him. They told the court that several attempts to get Tinubu to file a petition had failed.
After being declared the winner of the presidential election, Tinubu was moved to a high-security location, according to petitioners. They also told the court that vice-president-elect Shetima would also be unable to attend because he had moved from his known address to where he will be staying until his inauguration on May 29.
They claimed that the bailiffs sent to file Tinubu and his Shettima's petition returned with a trial after all attempts to gain access to them failed.
As a result, the petitioner has relied on Sections 6(6a) and 36(1) of the Constitution, as amended in 1999, Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act, and Section 8 of the 1st Schedule of the 2022 Elections Act, before the Court. . Both Atiku and Obi continued to support the ex parte motion of March 23 with affidavits of urgent and non-compliance.
They have ordered the Tinubu, Shettima, and Masari cases to "deliver and/or leave/insert the petitions and other cases filed in the petitions to the office of any of the APC's National Legal Counsel, or By leaving,” specifically requested to be allowed to serve in court. Other officials of his APC at the National Secretariat in Abuja”.
In addition, "an order to consider the services in the preceding paragraph to be good services".
Atiku's application was deferred Friday by his SAN's Eyitayo Jegede's legal team, while Obi's and LP's applications were deferred by his SAN's Ikechukwu Ezechukwu.
Recall that on March 1, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Tinubu of the ruling APC the winner of the presidential election, ahead of his 17 other candidates who ran for the election. . According to INEC, Tinubu received a total of 8,794,726 votes, defeating Atiku, who received a total of 6,984,520 votes, and LP's Obi, who finished third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.
However, both Atiku and Obi rejected the election results, claiming they had been rigged in Tinubu's favor.
Apart from accusing INEC of violating its own election rules and guidelines, the petitioners argued that Tinubu was legally ineligible to participate in the presidential campaign.
In addition, they claimed that the votes credited to the APC candidate were wasted because of the election's corruption and that he did not receive the greatest number of legitimate votes cast. Atiku also claimed that the electoral body used a third-party tool to intercept and sway votes in favor of the APC and its candidate.
Both Obi and Atiku separately claimed to have won the election, but they asked the court to declare the winner or order a new election instead. Both petitioners asked the court to have his INEC retract the return receipts previously issued by APC to Tinubu. APM said in its petition: CA/PEPC/04/2023, filed by her through her attorney, Mr. O. M. Atoyebi, SAN, states that Masari's resignation, originally nominated as the APC Vice Presidential Candidate, would not support Tinubu's candidacy under Section 131. (c) and § 142 of the 1999 Constitution, amended. The party waited about three months between Masari, listed as the fifth defendant, to announce his intention to resign, his alleged nomination being actually revoked, and Tinubu's alleged replacement of him with Shettima. Claimed there was a week gap. By the time he nominated Shettima to succeed Masari, Tinubu's candidature had expired and "because he was no longer the second defendant's stipulated presidential candidate, he was no longer in a constitutional position to nominate a vice presidential candidate." "Article 142 of the 1999 Constitution". The APM further argued that Masari's nomination had revitalized the constitutional principle of the common admission ticket, stressing that his subsequent resignation invalidated that common admission ticket. Therefore, in violation of the provisions of Section 35 of the 2022 Elections Act, INEC conducted the election, and on 25 February he was asked by the court to declare Shettima ineligible to run as the APC's vice-presidential candidate. asked. The party is seeking, among other things, "an order to nullify and nullify all votes won by Tinub in the presidential election on the grounds that Tinubu is ineligible for his APC candidacy." It also issues an order revoking the return certificate issued to Tinubu and an order declaring the winner of the presidential election to the candidate with the next highest number of votes. The court had previously ordered INEC to give access to all voting records used in the presidential election by Tinubu, who is currently abroad, so that he could be prepared to defend his election victory. .