The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), situated in Abuja, has adjourned the ongoing proceedings on the petition filed by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), challenging the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that the adjournment is set to continue until Friday.
Initially consolidated with the petitions filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and the Labour Party’s (LP) Mr. Peter Obi, APM’s case was adjourned by the five-member panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani.
The adjournment came after the court’s attention was drawn to a recent judgment by the Supreme Court.
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the President whose election is being contested by the APM, promptly notified the court about the Supreme Court’s judgment dismissing a PDP appeal questioning his eligibility to run in the presidential election held on February 25.
Tinubu’s lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, argued that the appeal filed by the PDP, which concerned the legality of Tinubu’s nomination by the All Progressives Congress (APC), directly related to the substance of APM’s petition.
Chief Olanipekun emphasised that the sole ground presented by APM in its petition was the double nominations of Vice President Kashim Shettima before the presidential election.
He maintained that the Supreme Court had already settled the issue and expressed the need to bring this decision to the attention of the court.
APM’s counsel, Mr. S.A.T. Abubakar, requested an adjournment to allow time for obtaining and studying the Supreme Court’s judgment. He stated that the petitioners needed to understand its implications for their case.
The petitioner’s lawyer sought an adjournment until Friday.
Counsel for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the APC expressed no objections to the request for an adjournment. The 4th Respondent, Mr. Ibrahim Masari, through his counsel, also did not oppose the application.
Consequently, the panel led by Justice Tsammani adjourned further proceedings on the petition until Friday.
In APM’s petition, labelled as CA/PEPC/04/2023, the party argued that the withdrawal of Mr. Masari, initially nominated as the Vice-Presidential candidate of the APC, rendered Tinubu’s candidacy invalid according to Section 131(c) and 142 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
The party claimed that there was a three-week gap between Masari’s expression of intent to withdraw, the actual withdrawal of his nomination, and Tinubu’s supposed replacement with Senator Kashim Shettima.
APM contended that Tinubu’s candidacy had expired by the time he nominated Shettima, as he was no longer eligible to nominate a running mate after ceasing to be a presidential candidate. The party argued that Masari’s initial nomination activated the joint ticket principle outlined in the Constitution, and his subsequent withdrawal invalidated the joint ticket.
APM urged the court to declare that Shettima was not qualified to run as the Vice-Presidential candidate of the APC on February 25, as he violated Section 35 of the Electoral Act, 2022.
Furthermore, APM requested an order nullifying all votes received by Tinubu in the presidential election and setting aside the Certificate of Return issued to him by INEC.
The APM’s CASE IS INNOVATIVE YET IRRELEVANT AND INCONSEQUENTIAL.
A waste of the time of the court.