Court sets Wednesday as the new date for the APP and Obi’s petition.

The Action Peoples Party and the Labour Party’s appeals to the Presidential Election appeals Tribunal in Abuja were postponed on Monday to May 10, 2023.

The parties are contesting Bola Tinubu’s declaration as the victor of the February 25 presidential election on behalf of the ruling All Progressive Congress.

The APP is contesting the results of the presidential election in the petition with the file number CA/ABJ/PEPC/02/2022 on the grounds of anomalies, including alleged tampering with election results.

Additionally, Tinubu’s victory is being contested by the APP, the petition’s sole applicant, on the grounds that “the first respondent was not qualified to stand for the said election having knowingly supplied false information,” including the alleged falsification of age and educational credentials.

Furthermore, it said that “the first respondent was not duly elected by a majority of lawfully cast votes at the election.”

The party said that the Independent National Electoral Commission’s officials engaged in corrupt behavior and that voter inducement was another practice that, among others, altered the results of the elections. The APP also claimed that “monumental vote buying” was a feature of the election.

According to the party, “the overvoting took place under the watchful eyes of agents of the third respondent.”

The APP’s petition was called after the Action Alliance withdrew and the petition was subsequently dismissed, and the parties announced appearances.

Peter Abang, the Action Peoples Party’s national legal adviser, and Obed Agu, the party’s legal representative, both made appearance announcements.

Wole Olanipekun announced the appearances of Bola Tinubu, the APC, and INEC for the respondents, as well as those of Lateef Fagbemi and Abubakar Mahmoud.

Then, Mahmoud, the attorney for INEC, notified the court of his client’s ongoing petitions in response to the APP’s petition, while Fagbemi, the attorney for the APC, informed the court of his preliminary opposition to the APP’s case.

In order to continue the hearing, the court continued the APP’s petition until Wednesday, May 10.

By midday on Wednesday, after the APP’s petition had been postponed, the Labour Party’s petition and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, had been called up.

Following Obi’s introduction as the first petitioner in the case, the parties made their appearances known.

The LP and Peter Obi, its presidential candidate, are contesting the results of the presidential election that took place on February 25 on the grounds that Tinubu was ineligible to run “for an offence involving dishonesty, namely narcotics trafficking imposed by the United States District Court.”

They also mentioned a failure to follow INEC norms and electoral regulations.

Obiora Ifoh, the national publicity secretary of the Labour Party, represented the LP, May Agbamuche-Mbu represented INEC, and Simon Lalong, the governor of Plateau State, represented the APC.

While Mahmoud served as the attorney for the electoral commission, Livy Uzoukwu represented Obi.

Olanipekun and Fagbemi kept up appearances for Tinubu, Kashim Shettima, the vice president-elect, and the APC, respectively.

Peter Obi’s legal representative, Uzoukwu, said that their answers to the questions were submitted on April 22, 2023.

“We adopt and rely on them in this pretrial proceedings.”

Mahmoud, the attorney for INEC, informed the court that the electoral body had submitted its answers to the pre-hearing inquiries.

Tinubu’s attorney, Olanipekun, also let the court know that his client had submitted his responses to the pre-hearing inquiries.

He said, “We have filed our answers on the 3rd of May 2023 and my Noble Lords under paragraph 14 we have also listed the application subject to the preliminary objection in the reply.”

He adopted the answers therein.

The APC’s attorney, Fagbemi, added that he had submitted responses on behalf of his client to the court’s pre-hearing inquiries.

The court then postponed consideration of Obi’s petition until May 10th, Wednesday.