The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal will on Monday May 8, begin hearing of the petitions challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, as Nigeria’s President-elect
The date was confirmed by the National Legal Adviser of the All Progressives Congress, Ahmad El-Marzuq. He said Monday’s hearing is a pre-hearing session to clarify if there are any applications before the main hearing will start.
The court had on 23 April stopped receiving replies from the petitioners.
According to El-Marzuq, the APC legal team has been briefed and is ready to defend the party’s mandate.
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, in the early hours of March 1 declared Tinubu the president-elect and the winner of the February 25th presidential election.
According to Yakubu, Tinubu, who was former Governor of Lagos State, garnered a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat his major rivals; Atiku Abubakar of the People Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 6,984,520 votes , and Peter Obi of Labour Party who secured 6,101,533 votes of the 24,965,218 total vote cast.
The election result sheets was not signed by PDP, LP, NNPP, and other parties which had earlier staged a walk out of the national collation centre.
The leadership of the parties alleged that the election process was compromised.
Obi and Atiku have separately filed petitions against the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the February 25th presidential election by the INEC.
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
