The five-member of Presidential Electoral Petitions Tribunal (PEPC), presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, has reserved its decision on the application by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President-elect Bola Tinubu and the All Progressive Congress (APC) to dismiss President Atiku Abubakar and the People’s Democracy party (PDP) petition.
INEC, Tinubu and APC asked the court to dismiss in whole or in part the points in the petition and other appendices filed by the applicant for violations of the provisions of the law.
After hearing the arguments of the lawyers for the parties, Justice Tsammani announced that the decision will be taken on the day of the judgment of the main application.
The lawyers who applied for INEC, Tinubu and APC – Kemi Pinheiro, Yusuf Ali and Lateef Fagbemi (all senior lawyers of Nigeria) – asked the court to grant relief in their applications, seven in total. I
NEC submitted two, Tinubu three and APC two.
In rebuttal, the petitioner’s lawyer, Chris Uche (SAN), urged the court to dismiss all the applications and proceed with his client’s case.
The court has adjourned additional pretrial hearings on the petition until Saturday to allow the parties to agree on a schedule for hearing the petition.
The court will soon resume hearing the petition of Peter Obi and the Labor Party (LP).