Election Dispute: Court adjourns Atiku’s petition against Tinubu till Friday

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri

ABUJA–The Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, has adjourned till Friday, further proceedings on the petition the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, filed to challenge the outcome of the presidential election that held on February 25.

The Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel adjourned to continue further pre-hearing session on the petition as well as to hear pending applications that were filed by the respondents.

Cited as respondents in the matter are the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress, APC.

The respondents are praying the court to dismiss the case in its entirety or in the alternative, strike out many paragraphs of the petition for being incompetent.

While adjourning the matter, Justice Tsammani said the court would on Friday, decide on the number of witnesses that would be allowed for each of the parties, time to be allocated to them, as well as the time to be allowed for cross examination.

He urged the parties to put heads together and agree on further modalities to be adopted.

It will be recalled that Atiku and the PDP are in their joint petition marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023, praying the court to among other things, withdraw the Certificate of Return that was issued to the President-elect by INEC.

The petitioners maintained that the declaration of Tinubu as winner of the presidential election was “invalid by reason of non- compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022”.

They further argued that Tinubu’s election was invalid by reason of corrupt practices, insisting that he was not duly elected by majority of lawful votes cast at the election.

Atiku further prayed the court to declare him as the winner of the presidential election, having secured the second highest number of lawful votes cast at the election.