Legal Fireworks begin as Presidential Election Tribunal commence Hearing

The 2023 Presidential Election battle will shift to the Election Petition Tribunal as the court has fixed Monday May 8 for the hearing of the petitions challenging the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the President-elect.

According to Tinubu’s legal team, Monday’s hearing is a pre-hearing session. The hearing is to clarify if there are any applications before the main hearing will start. The timetable will be set for the hearing of the substantive matters.

The court also stopped receiving replies from the petitioners on April 23.

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, had on March 1 declared Tinubu the President-Elect on the grounds that his party scored the majority of votes cast in the polls.

The former Lagos state governor had polled 8.8 million votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 6.9 million, Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) who amassed 6.1 million and 15 others.

Disputing the Result, Atiku and Obi filed separate petitions seeking orders to annul the election or declare them the winners of the polls.

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The PDP presidential candidate, who anchored his seven prayers on five grounds, asked the Presidential Election Tribunal to declare him the president-elect.

Alternatively, Atiku urged the court to cancel the election and order a fresh election due to alleged irregularities that marred the February 25 polls in thousands of polling units.

In their petition, Atiku and the PDP argued that as of March 1 when Tinubu was declared the winner of the election, the entire results and accreditation data from polling units had not been transmitted and uploaded by INEC.

Obi, who came third in the election, alleged that the election was characterised by various irregularities including the non-qualification of Tinubu and his running mate, Kashim Shettima to contest the election.

He also alleged that Tinubu failed to win the majority of the lawful votes cast in the election, just as he could not secure one-quarter of the lawful votes cast in the FCT.