The battle for who is Nigeria’s next president and Commander – in – Chief of the Armed Forces enters another phase next week as hearing of petitions by major and minor parties begins in the hallowed chambers of the Court of Appeal housing the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal next week.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had on March 1st declared the All Progressives Congress ( APC) presidential candidate, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu winner of the February 25 the presidential election. But the PDP and Labour are challenging his declaration and are submitting that he was neither qualified to have contested the election nor was he elected by majority of lawful votes.

About 91 Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) have lined up behind the contending political parties to argue their various positions with the Constitution of Nigeria and the Electoral Act 2022 (amended) as the major handbooks to canvass their positions.

While Mr. Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP) are being represented by 13 senior lawyers led by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu; Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are defending their petition with 19 SANs led by Chief Joe Kyari Gadzama; Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has 50 senior lawyers led by Chief Wole Olanipekun to hold his defence brief while the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has hired nine senior lawyers led by the former Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) President, Mr. Abubakar Mahmoud to defend its activities during the conduct of the presidential election.

Alhaji Abubakar and Mr. Obi filed their petitions on March 22, this year while both the APC and INEC filed their responses on Monday, 20 days after.

Alhaji Abubakar in the petition, marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023, which he lodged applied for the withdrawal of the Certificate of Return that was issued to Tinubu by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, maintaining that the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election was “invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022”.

Mr Obi, the Labour Party candidate who came third in the election on the other hand has submitted that the election was characterised by various irregularities including the non-qualification of Senator Tinubu and his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima to contest the election. He also alleged that Senator Tinubu failed to win the majority of the lawful votes cast in the election, and just as he could not secure one-quarter of the lawful votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja and that the election was conducted in substantial non-compliance with the provision of the law.

The electoral umpire had responded to the petitions of the PDP, LP, Allied People’s Movement (APM), Action Alliance(AA) and Action People’s Party (APP). In all it’s responses, INEC argued that as against the claims of the petitioners, it conducted the election in full compliance with relevant laws and challenges the petitioners to prove the contrary.

Last week, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar and his counterpart in the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, accused the President-elect, Senator Bola Tinubu, of deliberately avoiding petitions they filed to nullify his election.

Consequently, the duo re-approached the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, with ex-parte applications, seeking to be allowed to serve the petitions on Tinubu, through substituted means.

Having received the petitions, Section 7(1)(2) and (3) of the Electoral Act mandates the Secretary of the petitions court to immediately serve them on the respondents.

“(1) On the presentation of an election petition and payment of the requisite fees, the Secretary shall immediately (a) cause notice of the presentation of the election petition, to be served on each of the respondents ; (b) post on the tribunal notice board a certified copy of the election petition ; and (c) set aside a certified copy for onward transmission to the person or persons required by law to adjudicate and determine the election petition,” The first schedule of the Electoral Acts reads.

After the petitions have been served, the respondents are given 21 days to reply to the petitions.

Section 12 of the Electoral Act partly reads: “(1) The respondent shall, within 21 days of service of the petition on him file in the registry his reply, specifying in it which of the facts alleged in the election petition he admits and which he denies, and setting out the facts on which he relies in opposition to the election petition.

(2) Where the respondent in an election petition, complaining of an undue return and claiming the seat or office for a petitioner intend to prove that the claim is incorrect or false, the respondent in his reply shall set out the facts and figures clearly and distinctly disproving the claim of the petitioner.

“A respondent who has an objection to the hearing of the petition shall file his reply and state the objection in it, and the objection shall be heard along with the substantive petition.”
With APC’s response to the petition, Mr. Obi is expected to react to new issues of law raised in the response.

Senator Tinubu and his political party, APC, responded to the petitions on Monday asking the tribunal to dismiss the petition with substantial cost as the same was devoid of any merit and founded on frivolity. The All Progressives Congress (APC), also on Monday in Abuja asked the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to dismiss the petition filed by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, against the emergence of Senator Bola Tinubu as the president-elect in the 25 February election.

The APC, the 4th respondent in the petition, urged the PEPC to reject the petition in its notice of preliminary objection marked: CA/PEPC/03/2023 and filed at PEPC’s Secretariat, Monday night, by Mr. Thomas Ojo, a member of the party’s legal team led by Mr. Lateef Fagbemi (SAN).

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

Details of the Suit by Peter Obi at the Tribunal

Mr Obi, the 1st petitioner, and LP, the 2nd petitioner, had sued the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Senators Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and APC as 1st to 4th respondents respectively.

The petitioners are seeking the nullification of the election victory of Senators Tinubu and Shettima in the 25 February presidential poll.

Former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came second with 6,984,520 votes in the election while 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 Senator 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.

According to Mr Obi and LP ,the electoral umpire, 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.

Among other prayers, the petitioners urged the tribunal to “determine that, at the time of the presidential election held on February 25, 2023, the 2nd and 3rd respondents (Tinubu and Shettima) were not qualified to contest the election.

“That it be determined that all the votes recorded for the 2nd respondent in the election are wasted votes, owing to the non-qualification of the 2nd and 3rd respondents.

“That it be determined that on the basis of the remaining votes (after discountenancing the votes credited to the 2nd respondent) the 1st petitioner (Obi) scored a majority of the lawful votes cast at the election and had not less than 25 per cent of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the states of the federation and the FCT and satisfied the constitutional requirements to be declared the winner of the Feb. 25 presidential election.

“That it be determined that the 2nd respondent (Tinubu), having failed to score one-quarter of the votes cast at the presidential election in the FCT was not entitled to be declared and returned as the winner of the presidential election held on Feb. 25.”

In it’s reply, 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.

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

“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 APC’s Response

The APC argued that Mr. 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.”

The Parth argued further that all the PDP’s presidential candidates were screened on April 29, 2022 an exercise Mr Obi participated in and cleared to contest while being a member of the party.

APC 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 in Mr Obi’s petition.

“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, must be heard before his votes can be discountenanced by the tribunal,” the APC prayed the tribunal.

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

The party urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition with substantial cost as the same was devoid of any merit and founded on frivolity.

According to Section 16 of the First Schedule ,Section 140(1)and 152 of the Rules of Procedure for Election Petitions states that :” if a person in his reply to the election petition raises new issues of facts in defence of his case which the petition has not dealt with, the petitioner shall be entitled to file in the registry, within five days from the receipt of the respondent’s reply I answer to the new issues of fact,so that-
(a)the petitioner shall not at this stage be entitled to bring in new facts, grounds or prayers tending to amend or add to the contents of the petition filed by him;”

Next week, the petitioners are expected to apply for the issuance of pre -hearing notice as in Form TF 007 as stated in Section 18 of the Rules of Procedure for Election Petitions.