Petition Tribunal Dismisses First Petition Against Tinubu

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja dismissed one of the petitions filed by the Action Alliance (AA) challenging the victory of Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the February 25 Presidential poll.

Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) with 8,794,726 votes winner of the presidential election.

Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came second with 6,984,520 votes and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) was third with 6,101,533 votes.

Justice Haruna Tsammani who led a five-member panel of the court dismissed the case after the petitioner’s lawyer announced its withdrawal.

The dismissed case was the first among the five petitions received by the court to be called for hearing.

According to Tsammani there is need for cooperation in the court and he asked for cooperation of all the counsels since the case is time bound. He asked the petitioners to be wary of bringing unnecessary applications that will waste the time of the court.

The counsels in their separate responses assured the court of their full cooperation and support.

The counsels are Wole Olanikpekun, counsel to the President-Elect, Chris Uche, counsel to Atiku Abubakar, and Livy Uzoukwu, Peter Obi’s lawyer.

Tsammani in his statement concluded that everyone will be satisfied with the verdict at the end of the tribunal hearing.

What you should know about the petitions

Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, and other candidates proceeded to the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to dismiss Tinubu’s victory. This was as a result of the unsatisfactory declaration by the INEC after the February poll.

The INEC was said to have declared Bola Tinubu the president-elect while there were several cases of violence, snatching of ballot boxes, amongst others during the presidential election.

Each of the presidential candidates had insisted that they are the winner of the election.

Meanwhile, the presiding Justice at the Presidential election petition, Tsammani, has warned lawyers against making sensational comments even as the tribunal has adjourned its sitting to Wednesday, May 10.