The hearing of the petition by the Allied Peoples Movement has been continued until Friday, May 9, 2023, by the Presidential Election Petition Court.
The petitioners asked for more time to decide how to proceed with their petition, and the court granted their request.
The All Progressives Congress’ Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima were elected as president and vice president, respectively, in the election that the APM is contesting.
They argue that Tinubu was ineligible to run for president because the APC did not legitimately sponsor him because he lacked a validly nominated vice president.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, the APC, Bola Tinubu, Kashim Shettima, and Kabir Masari are listed as the petition’s first through fifth respondents.
The third respondent “lost his candidature and was no longer eligible to run in the presidential election,” according to the party. when the fifth respondent withdrew his nomination as the vice presidential candidate in the aforementioned presidential election for the second respondent.
According to the report, the PEPC on Tuesday, May 30 postponed the APM’s petition until Friday, June 2, 2023 in response to a comment made by Wole Olanikpekun, a lawyer for the president.
Olanikpekun informed the court that the Supreme Court recently rendered a decision that, in his opinion, appears to have addressed the issue the APM had brought before the court.
He cited the Supreme Court’s ruling from last Friday, May 26, which rejected the Peoples Democratic Party’s request for the court to invalidate the presidential and vice presidential candidates’ slates due to double nominating them.
Olanipekun wanted to know if the APM’s case, which is also contesting the election results on the grounds that Shettima was replaced with Kabir Masari, would be unaffected by the Apex Court’s ruling.
“We are aware that the Supreme Court decided on this same issue in the yet-to-be-reported judgement SC/CV/501/20223, in which the Peoples Democratic Party was pitted against INEC and three other parties, and the apex court arbitrated all of the issues,” he said.
“We promise that the certified true copies of the Supreme Court’s ruling will be made available within the next two days.
And we’ll also talk to the petitioners about whether filing this petition will still be necessary in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Shehu Abubakar, the APM’s attorney, responded by asking for a brief period of time so that the petitioners could use the ruling to guide their choice.
According to the learned silk’s submission, he said, “We shall be praying to adjourn the hearing of this petition so that we may apply to the Supreme Court for a copy of the relevant judgement, so that we may examine it and ascertain the impact it has on this petition.”
His request was granted, and the hearing for APM was postponed until June 2.
The third and fourth respondents’ attorney, Lateef Fagbemi, informed the court during the hearing’s resumption on Friday that they have not yet received the aforementioned judgement.
The APM’s attorney similarly informed the court that they are unable to “take a position on the status of the petition” until they have access to a copy of the Supreme Court’s decision.
“May we respectfully request an adjournment so that we can express our opinion regarding the petition’s status.”
Following the consent of all respondents, the court’s five-person panel granted their request.
Last Friday, the Supreme Court rejected the Peoples Democratic Party’s appeal asking for Bola Tinubu to be disqualified from the February 25 presidential election due to the alleged double nomination of his Vice President, Kashim Shettima.
Thus, the supreme court upheld that the All Progressives Congress duo was qualified to run in the February 25 presidential election.
