Atiku, Obi, Others To Serve Tinubu Petition Through APC

 

 

touchaheart Nigeria reports that the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, which is currently in session in Abuja, issued an order on Friday directing Atiku Abubakar, the candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party, and Peter Obi, the candidate for the Labour Party, to deliver copies of petitions to Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, in an effort to overturn his election.

 

The All Progressives Congress, Tinubu’s political party, was mandated by the court to serve Tinubu with the petitions.

 

Separate motions ex parte filed by Abubakar and Obi before the court led to the decision by a three-person panel of the court, led by Judge Joseph Ikyegh.

 

The PDP and LP candidates had charged Tinubu with purposefully delaying serving them with petitions. The petitioners informed the court that their repeated attempts to serve the APC candidate with the petitions had failed.

 

Eyitayo Jegede (SAN), the head of the legal teams for Atiku and Obi, and Ikechukwu Ezechukwu (SAN), respectively, moved the applications on Friday.

 

As justification for their request for court intervention, the attorneys cited Sections 6(6a) and 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution, Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act, and Paragraph 8 of the First Schedule of the Election Act 2022.

 

An affidavit of urgency and non-service was attached to the aggrieved presidential candidates’ ex parte motions, dated March 23, 2023.

 

The opposition against Tinubu persuaded the court to hear the applications separately from the pre-hearing of their substantive petitions.

 

After hearing the applications from the petitioners’ attorneys and the supporting affidavit, Judge Ikyegh announced the panel’s decision: The applications are hereby granted.

 

A third party, the Allied Peoples Movement, was also given permission by the court to serve Tinubu with their petition through alternative methods.

 

The Independent National Electoral Commission’s announcement of Tinubu of the APC as the victor of the presidential election on February 25 was challenged in separate challenges filed by four candidates on Tuesday.

 

Atiku, Obi, Solomon Okangbuan of the Action Alliance, and Chichi Ojei of the Allied People’s Movement have filed petitions asking that Tinubu’s election as president-elect be declared invalid.