The Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja has fixed Wednesday, September 6th, for judgment on the respective petitions challenging the election of President Bola Tinubu.
Chief Registrar of the Court, Umar M. Bangari (Esq), disclosed this ina press statement on Monday.
The statement reads: “The Court of Appeal wishes to inform the General Public that judgment in the following petitions before the Presidential Election Petition Court will be delivered on Wednesday 6 September, 2023:
“CAPEPC/03/2023 between Mr. Peter Gregory Obi & Anor VS.
Independent National Electoral Commission & 3 Ors.
“CAPEPC/04/2023 between Allied Peoples Movement VS. Independent National Electoral Commission & 4 Ors.
“CA/PEPC/05/2023 between Abubakar Atiku & Anor VS. Independent National Electoral Commission & 2 Ors.
“In a bid to promote transparency and openness, these judgments will be televised live by interested Television Stations for the public to follow.”
“Access to the Court premises will be strictly on accreditation. Only accredited individuals, including Counsel and representatives of Political Parties, will be granted access into the Courtroom”.
While urging the public to watch proceedings from their television sets, the court said “For accreditation and further inquiries, please contact: Josephine on 08037052260 or Samira on 08164483081.
“We appeal for the maximum cooperation of the General Public to ensure a hitch free exercise, please.”
DIPLOMATIC DIARY reports that the PEPC’s five-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani was inaugurated to preside over petitions challenging the outcome of the presidential election declared in favour of President Tinubu by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
All the petitioners, Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and the Allied Peoples Movement APM; alongside the defendants (INEC, Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and others) have closed their cases after presenting witnesses and tendering evidence to support their respective submissions.
Obi’s legal team alleged that INEC connived with Tinubu to blur his additional 2.5 million votes that would have put him as the winner of the polls.
Atiku had claimed that INEC did not comply with its guidelines when the INEC Results Viewing Portal IRev portal failed to upload election results in real-time from polling units, thereby allegedly paving way for rigging.
Also, Obi and Atiku asked the PEPC to cancel Tinubu’s election victory for not securing 25 per cent of votes in FCT.
The defendants also filed and argued their final written addresses asking the court to throw out all the petitions challenging the election of Tinubu for lacking in merit.
INEC maintained that the petitioners failed to provide the party agents’ polling results to counter what was already announced by INEC Chairman, Yakubu Mahmood.
