Dismiss Atiku’s ‘meaningless’ petition, APC asks PEPC

By Vivian Okejeme

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s petition as meaningless as it asked the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to dismiss it.

Atiku and his party, Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) are at the PEPC sitting in Court of Appeal Abuja, praying it to dismiss the petition filed by the PDP challenging the election of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in the February 25, 2023 presidential poll.

In its notice of preliminary objection marked: CA/

PEPC/A/05/2023, APC is praying the tribunal to reject the petition.

According the party, the tribunal has no jurisdiction to adjudicate on the petitioners’ allegation predicated on ground (D) in paragraph 16 of the petition and the related paragraph 146 which lacks necessary facts or particulars as required by paragraph 4 (1)(d) of the rules of procedure for election petitions ( 1st Schedule to the electoral Act 2022.

”The petitioners’ paragraph 146 in support of ground four on non-qualification is vague, bare and meaningless as having the constitutional threshold is not part of the requirement to contest any election,” the APC said.

The APC said allegations of non-compliance must be made distinctly and proved on polling unit basis.

The party also added that the petitioners did not provide the particulars of polling units where any irregularity or noncompliance took place.

”The petition as presently constituted, is devoid of necessary particulars to support allegations of corrupt practices, violence and non-compliance with provisions of the electoral act.

”Paragraph 35 of the petition is not relevant or cognizable and

84 is vague as no specific figure or polling units are pleaded as the margin of lead to be countered by the respondent,” the APC said.

The APC therefore prayed the tribunal to dismiss or strike out the petitioners ‘ petition for lack of merit.

Atiku and the PDP in the petition dated 21 March claimed that Mr Tinubu’s victory was as a result of alleged malpractices and other irregularities, upon which they are seeking the nullification of his victory.

Respondents in the petition marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023, are the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),

Tinubu and the APC as 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively.

The petition is based on four major grounds amongst which are that Mr Tinubu’s election is invalid by reason of noncompliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.

The petition also alleged that the election was invalid because of corrupt practices.

Thirdly, the petition stated that Mr Tinubu was not duly elected by majority of lawful votes cast at the Election.

It also stated that Tinubu was at the time of the election not qualified to contest the election.

Children having fun, during the 2023 Easter Monday celebration, at Hakuna Matata theme park, at the weekend in Lagos.

Presidential Poll: APC wants PEPC to dismiss Obi, LP’s petition against Tinubu

By Vivian Okejeme, Abuja

The All Progressives Congress

(APC), has asked the Presidential Election Petition Court to dismiss the petition filed by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, against the emergence of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as the president-elect in the February 25 presidential election.

The APC, had through it’s lead counsel, Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN urged the tribunal sitting in Abuja to reject the petition.

In the objection, the party asked the tribunal to dismiss the petition with substantial cost on the grounds that it lacked merit and was frivolous.

This was made known in the preliminary objection filed against the petition of Labour Party the ruling party, who is the 4th respondent in the petition.

LP and its presidential candidate, Mr Obi, had sued the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu, Senator Kashim Shettima and APC as 1st to 4th respondents respectively.

They are praying the tribunal to nullifiy the victory of Tinubu and

Shettima in the presidential poll.

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came second with 6,984,520 votes in the election. Mr Obi came third with 6,101,533 votes.

In the petition marked: CA/ PEPC/03/2023 filed by Mr Obi and LP’s lead counsel, Livy Ozoukwu, they contended that Mr Tinubu “was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the time of the election”.

The petitioners claimed there was rigging in 11 states, adding that they would demonstrate this in the declaration of results based on the uploaded results.

Obi and LP said INEC violated its own regulations when it announced the result despite the fact that at the time of the announcement, the totality of the polling unit results had yet to be fully scanned, uploaded and transmitted electronically as required by the Electoral Act.

But in its response to the petition, the APC asked the court to dismiss the suit on the ground that Mr Obi, the 1st petitioner, lacked requisite “locus standi” to institute the petition because he was not a member of LP at least 30 days to the party’s presidential primary to be validly sponsored by the party.

It said: “The 1st petitioner (Obi) was a member of PDP until May 24, 2022.

“1st petitioner was screened as a presidential aspirant of the PDP in Apni 2022.

“The 1st petitioner participated and was cleared to contest the presidential election while being a member of the PDP.

“1st petitioner purportedly resigned his membership of PDP on May 24, 2022 to purportedly join the 2nd petitioner (Labour Party) on May 27, 2022.

“2nd petitioner conducted its presidential primary on May 30, 2022 which purportedly produced 1st petitioner as its candidate, which time contravened Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act for him to contest the primary election as a member of the 2nd petitioner.”

The party argued that Obi was not a member of LP at the time of his alleged sponsorship.

The APC argued that “by the mandatory provisions of Section 77 (1) (2) and (3) of the Electoral Act 2022, a political party shall maintain a register and shall make such register available to INEC not later than 30 days before the date fixed for the party primaries, congresses and convention.”

It stated further that all the PDP’s presidential candidates were screened on 29 April 29, an exercise Mr Obi participated in and cleared to contest while being a member of the party.

It argued that the petition was incompetent since Mr Obi’s name could not have been in LP’s register made available to INEC at the time he joined the party.

The APC equally argued that the petition was improperly constituted having failed to join Atiku Abubakar and PDP who were necessary parties to be affected by the reliefs sought.

“By Paragraph 17 of the petition, the petitioners, on their own, stated that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar came second in the presidential election with 6,984,520 votes as against the petitioners who came third with 6,101,533 votes;

“At Paragraph 102 (ii) of the petition, the petitioners urged the tribunal to determine that 1st petitioner scored the majority of lawful votes without joining Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the petition.

“For the tribunal to grant prayer (iii) of the petitioners, the tribunal must have set aside the scores and election of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

“Alhaji Atiku Abubakar must be heard before his votes can be discountenanced by the tribunal,” it said.

The party said the petition and the identified paragraphs were in breach of the mandatory provisions of Paragraph 4(1)(D) of the 1st Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2022.

According to APC, Paragraphs 60 — 77 of the petition are nonspecific, vague and/or nebulous and thereby incompetent contrary to Paragraph 4(1)(d) of the Ist Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2022.

It said that the allegations of non-compliance must be made distinctly and proved on a polling unit basis but none was specified or provided in any of the paragraphs of the petition.

“Paragraphs 59-60 of the petition disclose no identity or particulars of scores and polling units supplied in 18,088 units mentioned therein,” it added.

The party, therefore, argued that the tribunal lacked the requisite jurisdiction to entertain pre-election complaints embedded in the petition as presently constituted, among other arguments.