The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal sitting at the Court of Appeal, Abuja has begun the pre-hearing of all petitions challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu as winner of the 2023 presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The court pre-hearing resumed at 10:44 am and is presided by Justice Haruna Tsammani. He leads a five-man panel of Justices to include Justice Stephen Adah of the Court of Appeal Asaba division, Justice Misitura Bolaji-Yusuf, Court of Appeal also of Asaba Division, Justice Boloukuoromo Ugoh of Kano division, Justice Abba Mohammed of Ibadan Court of Appeal.
The panel will treat three petitions today, the the Action Alliance (AA) and INEC, All Progressives Congress APC and Hamza Al Mustapha.
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The second petition is Action People’s Party (APP) vs Bola Ahmed Tinubu, APC)l amd INEC. The last petition would be that of Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP) marked CA/PEPC/03/2023 vs INEC, Tinubu, Kashim Shetima and APC.
In his opening remarks, Tsammani assured that the panel will treat all perdition justly and in a timely manner.
The pre-hearing petition filled by Obi’s legal team seek “Applications for subpoena, objections, enforcement of order of court not obeyed by INEC and other applications arising in the course of the hearing.” Obi is challenging the outcome yhe election process and its outcome, saying it is fraughtvwith irregularities including non-compliance to the electoral Act.
Chris Uche, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) is the head of Atiku’s legal team, Wole Olanipekun is the head of Tinubu’s legal team, while, Levi Uzoukwu is the head of Obi’s team.
In their opening remarks, the senior advocates stressed that the petitions have imposed a lot of public interest and will impact on Nigerians
