Nigerians are about to experience a massive legal showdown as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 General elections has dragged the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) had filed a petition before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting at the Appeal Court Abuja, asking it to nullify the declaration of Tinubu as the President-elect.
In addition to the two petitions, the presidential candidate of Action Alliance (AA), Solomon Okangbuan; and the presidential candidate of Allied People’s Movement (APM), Chichi Ojei, have also filed for the nullification of the declaration of Tinubu as president-elect.
Atiku, in the petition, marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023, prayed for the withdrawal of the Certificate of Return that was issued to Tinubu by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The presidential candidate argued that the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election was “invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022”.
Atiku, through his team of lawyers led by Mr Joe Kyari Gadzama, SAN, further argued that Tinubu’s election was invalid by reason of corrupt practices.
“The 2nd Respondent was not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast at the Election.
“The 2nd Respondent was at the time of the Election not qualified to contest the Election”, Atiku added while listing grounds he said the court should consider nullifying Tinubu’s election.
He prayed the court to declare him the winner of the presidential election, having secured the second-highest number of lawful votes cast at the election.
It will be recalled that INEC had on March 1, announced Tinubu as the winner of the presidential poll, ahead of 17 other candidates that contested the election.
It declared that Tinubu scored a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku who polled a total of 6,984,520 votes and Obi who had a total of 6,101,533 votes.
