By Agency Report
The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) has told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that it will need only one day to open and close its case challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu in the 25 presidential polls.
The party says it has only one witness, who will testify and be cross-examined in just one day.
Addressing the five-member panel of the court Monday, Gideon Idiagbonya, lawyer to the party, said: “My lords, we intended to open our case today but in the cause of having a pre-trial conference with our sole witness, but we realised that certain documents we intend to tender are not in the file handed over to us by the previous counsel.
“In view of this, we ask for another date to enable us to open and close our case in one day since we have just one witness.”
The party’s petition is anchored solely on the alleged wrongful nomination of Vice-President Kashim Shettima as President Tinubu’s running mate in the 25 February presidential election.
APM argues that Mr Tinubu was not properly sponsored for the election by his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), by nominating Mr Shettima as his vice-presidential candidate without withdrawing his candidature as a senatorial candidate.
But while the hearing on the petition was underway at the presidential election court, the Supreme Court, last month, dismissed a suit in which the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) raised the same issue against Messrs Tinubu and Shettima.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that after the Supreme Court’s judgement delivered on 26 May, Mr Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), drew the attention of the presidential election court to the latest decision.
APM’s lawyer had then sought to obtain a copy of the judgment to guide its decision on whether to terminate or continue with its petition.
Giving an update on the matter on Monday, APM’s lawyer, Mr Idiagbonya, said his client had reviewed the Supreme Court judgment of the Supreme Court and was of the opinion that his client could still proceed with the petition.
But Mr Tinubu’s lawyer, Mr Olanipekun, insisted that the Supreme Court’s judgement had settled the issues raised by the petitioner.
Adjournment
Mr Olanipekun, however, did not oppose the application for an adjournment.
Similarly, the counsel for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Abubakar Mahmoud, a SAN, and that of the APC, Charles Edosanwan, also a SAN, as well as G.M Isho, the lawyer representing the 5th respondent, Kabiru Masari, did not oppose the application for an adjournment.
The head of the five-person panel of the court, Haruna Tsammani, adjourned the hearing in the petition until 21 June to open and close its case as counsel had told the court.
Petition
The APM had, in its petition marked: CA/PEPC/04/2023, contended that the withdrawal of Kabiru Masari, who was initially nominated as the vice-presidential candidate of the APC, invalidated Mr Tinubu’s candidacy in view of Section 131(c) and 142 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
The party argued that there was a three-week gap between the period that Mr Masari, who joined as the 5th respondent in the petition, expressed his intention to withdraw before withdrawing his nomination and when Mr Tinubu replaced him with Mr Shettima.
It further argued that Mr Tinubu’s candidature had elapsed as of the time he nominated Mr Shettima as Mr Masari’s replacement.
According to the petitioner, as of the time Mr Tinubu announced Mr Shettima as the vice-presidential candidate, he was no longer in a position, constitutionally, to nominate a running mate.
This, according to the APM, implied that Mr Tinubu had ceased to be a presidential candidate of the APC based on the provisions of Section 142 of the 1999 Constitution.
The party prayed the court to declare that Mr Shettima was not qualified to contest as the vice-presidential candidate of the APC as of 25 February, when the election was
The petitioner therefore asked the court for an order nullifying and voiding all the votes scored by Mr Tinubu in the presidential election in view of his non-qualification as a candidate of the APC.
It urged the court to declare Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who came second in the election, as the winner of the poll.
Meanwhile, Atiku is prosecuting a separate petition challenging Mr Tinubu’s victory in the poll at the same court.
(NAN)
