The Presidential Election Petitions Court, sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, has scheduled a pre-hearing on Monday, May 8, to hear petitions challenging President-elect Bola Tinubu’s victory.
Prof Yakubu Mahmood, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), declared the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate the winner of the February 25 presidential election on March 1.
A reliable source at the Presidential Election Petition Court registry in Abuja confirmed the date for the hearing but requested anonymity, adding that notice of the pre-hearing session had been served on all parties in the matter.
The Court will consider other applications filed before the main hearing of the petitions during the pre-hearing session.
The Presidential Election Petition Court is expected to issue a full schedule for hearing the substantive petitions filed against Tinubu’s election victory.
Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), and others want Tinubu’s victory overturned due to significant noncompliance with the provisions of the Constitution, the Electoral Act, and INEC’s election guidelines.
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INEC issues a certificate of return to Ondo lawmaker Adefarati Atiku, who is seeking a new election on five grounds due to alleged irregularities at polling units on February 25.
He and the PDP claimed Tinubu was declared the winner despite INEC failing to transmit and upload all results and accreditation data from polling units.
Obi is also alleging various irregularities, claiming that Tinubu and his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima, are ineligible to run.
According to the LP Presidential candidate, the President-elect did not receive a majority of lawful votes and did not receive one-quarter of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The three other political parties, Action Alliance (AA), Allied Peoples Movement (APM), and Action Peoples Party (APP), had challenged Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of the presidential election by INEC in separate petitions.
Respondents in the petition marked CA/PEPC/01/2023 are INEC, APC, Tinubu, and Hamza Al-Mustapha.
APM joined INEC, APC, Tinubu, Kashim Shettima, and Kabir Masari as respondents in its petition numbered CA/PEPC/04/2023.
Tinubu, APC, and INEC are the first to third respondents in the APP petition, while the AA and its presidential candidate, Solomon David Okanigbuan, APM, and APP are challenging the outcome of the presidential election on the grounds of alleged substantial non-compliance with electoral laws and INEC guidelines for election conduct.
While the AA claimed that its candidate, Solomon-David Okanigbuan, was barred from running in the presidential election and that the election should be annulled, the APM claims that Tinubu was ineligible to run due to the alleged double nomination of his vice-presidential candidate.
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It is also questioning Tinubu’s candidature due to the replacement of the initial “placeholder,” Kabir Masari, with Shettima.
The APP, for its part, claimed that Tinubu was ineligible to run for office at the time of the election due to provisions in Sections 131(c) and 142 of the Constitution, as well as Section 35 of the Electoral Act 2022.
The APC has already filed an objection to the five petitions filed against the election victory of its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, urging the Tribunal to dismiss the petitioners’ complaints.
