The Court of Appeal in Abuja has granted Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, permission to serve his petition challenging the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the February 25 presidential election.
In an ex parte application, Obi’s counsel, Ikechukwu Ezechukwu (SAN), asked the court to allow Obi and the Labour Party to serve their petition on Tinubu and his vice president-elect, Kashim Shettima, through substituted means.
Ezechukwu argued in his prayer that the security surrounding the president-elect and vice president-elect demanded their request that the petition be sent through “substituted means.”
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Obi’s legal counsel informed the court that in an earlier ex parte application, the bailiff of the Court of Appeal had made “unsuccessful attempts to personally serve the petition on” Messrs Tinubu and Shettima, necessitating the need for this “substituted means.”
He pleaded with the court to permit that the court papers be sent to Tinubu and Shettima through the office of the legal counsel of the APC.
Haruna Tsammani, who led the three-member panel of the Appeal Court, granted the request of Obi, saying that “by delivering… or pasting the petition No. CA/PEPC/03/2023 and all other processes filed in the petition at either the office of the National Legal Adviser of the” APC or… with any other officer of the APC “at its National Secretariat at No. 40 Blantyre Street, Off Ademola Adetokunbo Crescent, Wuse 2, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
