Tribunal to decide on Atiku, Obi suits against Tinubu

Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia

The Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, (tribunal) sitting in Abuja, will on Wednesday, deliver judgment on petitions by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar; and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, seeking to nullify President Bola Tinubu’s election.

This was contained in a press statement issued Monday by the Chief Registrar, Court of Appeal, Umar Bangari.

According to the statement, the court proceedings will be televised live on interested national television stations.

The statement obtained by Ikengaonline read in part: “The Court of Appeal wishes to inform the General Public that judgment in the following petitions before the Presidential Election Petition Court will be delivered on Wednesday 6” September, 2023:

“CA/PEPC/03/2023 between Mr. Peter Gregory Obi & others VS. Independent National Electoral Commission & 3 others.

“CA/PEPC/04/2023 between Allied Peoples Movement VS. Independent National Electoral Commission & 4 others.

“CA/PEPC/05/2023 between Abubakar Atiku & others VS. Independent National Electoral Commission & 2 others.

“In a bid to promote transparency and openness, these judgments will be televised live by interested Television Stations for the public to follow.

“IMPORTANT NOTE: Access to the Court premises will be strictly on accreditation. Only accredited individuals, including Counsel and representatives of Political Parties, will be granted access into the Courtroom. Interested members of the public are advised to watch proceedings from their television sets.

“For accreditation and further inquiries, please contact: Josephine on 08037052260 or Samira on 08164483081.

“We appeal for the maximum cooperation of the General Public to ensure a hitch-free”.

Recall that the Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member PEPC, had after the adoption of written addresses of all parties on August 1, reserved judgment for a date to be communicated to the parties.

Ikengaonline had reported that while adopting their final written address, Atiku and his party, through their legal team led by Chief Chris Uche, SAN, urged the court to declare that President Tinubu was not qualified to participate in the February 25 presidential poll.

Similarly, Obi and the Labour Party, through their lawyer, Mr Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, argued that the purported technical glitch as claimed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was a deliberate act to compromise the outcome of the poll in favour of the APC candidate.

The LP candidate while urging the tribunal to remove Tinubu, insisted that “an election where over 18, 088 blurred results were uploaded to INEC’s IReV portal, is certainly a flawed election.”

Both the PDP and LP, prayed the tribunal to nullify the entire outcome of the presidential election and order a re-run or fresh contest.