Presidential election: Don’t cancel our victory over 25 percent in FCT – Tinubu, Shettima begs tribunal
The Presidential Election Petition Court on Friday, in a reserved judgment in the petition of the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, seeking disqualification of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu from the February 25 presidential election on the grounds of unlawful nomination.
The Court adjourned its verdict indefinitely after the parties adopted their final addresses seeking various requests.
APM is praying the Court to nullify the election of Tinubu on the ground that his Vice Presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, unlawfully allowed himself to be nominated twice for the two different constituencies.
Shettima had been nominated by the All Progressives Congress, APC, as a candidate for Borno Central Senatorial District and was later nominated by the same party as Vice Presidential candidate following the withdrawal of one Kabiru Masari, who was the initial Vice Presidential candidate to Tinubu.
The grouse of the APM was that Shettima and the APC breached the Electoral Act by engaging in the alleged double nomination.
However, at Friday’s proceedings where final addresses were adopted, APM, through its counsel Andrew Malgwu SAN, asked the court to invoke relevant law to nullify the nomination of Tinubu and Shettima on the ground of unlawful, illegal and unjustifiable nomination.
However, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which is the 1st respondent in the petition, prayed the Court to dismiss the petition for lacking in merit.
The APC, represented by Lateef Olasunkanmi Fagbemi SAN, asked the court to dismiss the petition on all grounds for being frivolous, irritating and unwarranted.
Fagbemi argued that the petition died on arrival in view of the Supreme Court judgment that other political parties cannot interfere in the internal affairs of another party, especially on the issue of nomination.
In the same vein, Tinubu and Shettima, represented by legal luminary, Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, argued that the APM’s petition ought not to have been filed in the first instance and demanded its outright dismissal.
Olanipekun told the Court that the petition ought to have been withdrawn honourably immediately after the Supreme Court made a pronouncement that no party has the right to dabble into how another party nominated its candidates for elective offices.
Shortly after the proceedings, the Presiding Justice of the Court, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, adjourned judgment indefinitely.
Justice Tsammani told the retinue of lawyers in the court that they would be communicated once the judgment was ready.
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