Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja has reserved judgement in the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the February 23 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, against the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The court also reserved judgment in a petition filed by Peter Obi and Labour Party (LP) challenging Tinubu’s election into power.
Obi and LP are petitioners in the petition marked CA/PEPC/03/2023 challenging the election which brought president Bola Tinubu into power
Respondents are the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President Tinubu and Vice president Kashim Shettima and All Progressives Congress (APC).
The five-member panel presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani reserved judgment in Atiku and Obi’s petitions to a date that will be communicated to parties after parties adopted their final written addresses.
Chairman of the court fixed the date after listening to arguments from parties in the matter.
The major petitioner, Atiku, had while adopting his final address asked the court to do substantial justice to his petition and not technical judgment that may pervert the course of justice.
He insisted that Tinubu must be disqualified on the strength of the American court judgment where he was made to forfeit $460,000 on narcotics drug and money laundering-related offences.
Atiku’s final address was adopted by his lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche (SAN).
However, counsel to APC, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), urged the court to discountenance the arguments on the ground that the purported forfeiture had taken place more than 30 years ago.
President Tinubu through his lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), prayed the court to dismiss the petition because the grievances of Atiku and PDP were targeted at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and not Tinubu.
He said by not directing his grievances against Tinubu, the PDP presidential candidate and his party are deemed to have abandoned the petition against the declaration of Tinubu as President.
On its part, INEC, represented by Abubakar Mahmood (SAN), asked the court to dismiss the petition on the ground that the petitioners did not prove the allegations of malpractices and forgery contained in the petition as required by law.
In the case of Obi and LP, following the closing of the cases of the respondents on July 5, time was given to parties to file their written addresses.
Adopting their final written addresses filed on July 14, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), lead counsel for INEC urged the court to uphold their objections and take the petition as lacking in merit and should be dismissed.
