Court grants Obi, Atiku permission to serve petitions on Tinubu through APC

The presidential election tribunal has ordered that Bola Tinubu, president-elect, should be served with copies of petitions seeking to nullify his election through substituted means.

Ruling on separate ex parte motions filed by Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), and Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a three-man panel of the court led by Joseph Ikyegh directed that the petitions should be served on Tinubu through his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Both Atiku and Obi averred that the president-elect is deliberately avoiding the service of their petitions on him.

Consequently, relying on Section 6(6a) and 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act, as well as Paragraph 8 of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act 2022, the petitioners sought the intervention of the court.

The ex parte motions dated March 23 have attached to them affidavits of urgency and non-service.

Eyitayo Jegede, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), moved Atiku’s application and that of Obi was moved by Ikechukwu Ezechukwu, SAN. 

“Having heard the applications by counsel to the petitioners including the affidavit in support, the applications are hereby granted,” the tribunal ruled. 

The panel equally granted leave to the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) to also serve its own petition on Tinubu via substituted means.

Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes to defeat Abubakar who polled 6,984,520 votes, and Obi who had 6,101,533 votes in the election held on February 25.