May 03, (THEWILL) – The Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) sitting at the Appeal Court, Abuja, has fixed Monday, May 8, 2023, for the pre-hearing session of the petitions challenging the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the President-elect.
Although the timetable for the hearing of the substantive matters has not been released, Tinubu’s legal team, however, confirmed that Monday’s hearing is a pre-hearing session to clarify if there are any applications before the main hearing of the petitions will start.
THEWILL learnt that the PEPC 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.
According to INEC, Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who scored 6,984,520 votes and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), who came third with 6,101,533 votes, while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.
Disputing the Result, Atiku and Obi filed separate petitions seeking orders to annul the election or declare them the winners of the polls.
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, and just as he could not secure one-quarter of the lawful votes cast in the FCT.
