By Ayo Yusuf
The Presidential Election Petition Court on Friday reserved judgment in the petition of the Allied Peoples Movement challenging the conduct of the February 25 elections which was won by President Bola Tinubu.
The party is seeking the disqualification of Mr. Tinubu on the grounds that his running mate, Kashim Shetima unlawfully allowed himself to be nominated twice for the two different constituencies.
The party reckons that Shetima and the APC breached the Electoral Act by engaging in an alleged double nomination as he had previously been nominated by the APC as the candidate for Borno Central Senatorial District before he was later nominated as the vice presidential candidate to substitute for Kabiru Masari who was the initial running mate for Mr. Tinubu.
Respondents in the suit are the Independent National Electoral Commission, the All Progressives Party, President Tinubu, his vice, Shettima and the purported placeholder, Kabiru Masari.
At the resumed proceedings in the petition on Friday, the court reserved its verdict and adjourned the matter for judgement after the parties adopted their final addresses seeking various requests.
APM through its counsel, Andrew Malgwu (SAN), asked the court to invoke relevant law to invalidate the nomination of Tinubu and his vice, Kassim Shetima.
However, the first respondent, INEC prayed the Court to dismiss the petition for lacking in merit.
On the part of the APC, Counsel for the party, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), asked the court to dismiss the petition on all grounds for being frivolous.
He contended that the petition died on arrival under the Supreme Court judgement which affirmed that other political parties lack the right to meddle in the internal affairs of another or how it nominates its candidates for elective offices.
Similarly, counsel the president and his vice, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), argued that the APM’S petition ought not to have been filed in the first instance and demanded its outright dismissal.
The learned silk maintained that the petitioner ought to have withdrawn the case honourably after the Supreme Court delivered judgement in a similar case brought before it by the Peoples Democratic Party against the same defendants.
Presiding Justice of the Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani, thereafter adjourned the judgment indefinitely to communicate the date once the judgement is ready.
