Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and candidate for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the most recent presidential election, chastised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday for filing procedures to defend the presidential candidate Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s qualifications. The electorate’s support for the president-elect, whose election triumph is being contested in court, was misguided, according to Atiku.
The PDP candidate who finished second in the February 25 presidential election, through a team of attorneys led by Chief Chris Uche, SAN, urged the Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja to dismiss a counter affidavit and preliminary objection the Commission filed to challenge his victory while accusing INEC of engaging in a proxy war for Tinubu.
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Atiku claims that INEC lacks the legal authority to address the issues regarding Tinubu’s age, educational background, and suspected involvement in a drug-related case in the United States of America, USA.
He argued that INEC should maintain its impartiality in the matter because it served as the umpire for the election.
At the time that the case’s hearings were resumed, Atiku’s attorney informed the court that there were seven applications still waiting, one of which, according to him, was the one in which INEC requested that 32 paragraphs of the petition pertaining to Tinubu’s qualifications be struck out.
Uche, SAN, requested that the court deem INEC’s preliminary objection to be a blatant abuse of the legal process in addition to dismissing it.
“All that INEC has done is to ask for averments that were against Tinubu to be struck out. INEC is fighting a proxy war for Tinubu, which a neutral umpire is not expected to do. This is very wrong my lords,” Atiku’s lawyer added.
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However, INEC, the first respondent in the case, requested the court to either strike out the aforementioned paragraphs or dismiss the entire petition for lack of subject matter expertise through a team of attorneys led by Mr. Abubakar Mahmood, SAN.
Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, the attorney representing Tinubu, and Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, the attorney for the APC, both called the court’s attention to documents they had also submitted asking for the petition to be dismissed.
To wrap up the pre-hearing session, the five-member panel, led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, delayed the case to Saturday.
The court decided that all preliminary objections will be decided before the case’s ultimate decision.
The development occurred on the same day that the court also postponed until Saturday another plea that Mr. Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, had filed with the court.
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The Lamidi Apapa-led wing of the LP briefed another Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, to announce the party’s attendance in court on Friday, which resulted in a minor drama.
Chief Oba Maduabuchi, SAN, rose up as soon as Obi’s petition was called for hearing and attorneys were instructed to announce their presences and inform the court that he had been briefed to represent the LP.
The senior attorney spoke to the court after Prof. Awa Kalu, SAN, who was there with five other SANs, had already identified himself as the petitioners’ attorney.
In order to appear and represent the party in the action, Maduabuchi, SAN, informed the court that he had received instructions from the party.
The judges, though, decided against recording his performance.
“This petition was not submitted by you. Let the party who filed the complaint make an appearance announcement. We are unable to record you, the judge ruled.
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A different panelist chastised Maduabuchi, SAN, for accepting the brief even though he knew the party already had its own legal team.
“As a learned silk, you should know better and you should have told whoever briefed you that there is another lawyer handling the matter,” a member of the panel added.
Maduabuchi, SAN, said he would go back and explain what happened in court to his client after realizing he would not be permitted to take over the case.
“That is not our business. You can either leave the court or sit and observe the proceedings,” Chairman of the panel, Justice Tsammani told him. Earlier, Obi, who was in court, announced himself as the representative of the petitioners.
Surprisingly, both Julius Abure and Apapa, the party’s two factional chairmen, were present in court for the case.
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As you may remember, angry youngsters attacked Apapa on Tuesday in the courthouse, accusing him of using himself as a weapon for those looking to split the party.
Security personnel working for the court then took Apapa into protective custody after he vehemently denied receiving N500 million to end Obi’s complaint against Tinubu.
The court also announced that it would rule on two distinct requests made by Atiku and Obi for daily live coverage of their legal proceedings on Monday.
They stated that the conflict surrounding the presidential election was extremely important to Nigerians living inside and outside of the nation.
However, INEC, Tinubu, and the APC were against the request because they believed it would subject the judiciary to unwarranted criticism.
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They added that a live broadcast of the proceedings would not be allowed in the absence of a directive from the Court of Appeal President regarding administrative policy.
Both Atiku and Obi are asking INEC to revoke the Certificate of Return it had previously given to Tinubu.
The pair asserted in their individual petitions that they had won the presidential election and that Tinubu had not been legitimately chosen as the winner by a majority of the valid votes cast.
Furthermore, they informed the court that Tinubu lacked the necessary qualifications to run for office and that his election was illegitimate due to fraud.
You may recall that on March 1, INEC declared Tinubu the winner of the presidential election over the other 17 contenders who ran for the position.
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According to INEC, Tinubu received a total of 8,794,726 votes, defeating Atiku, who received 6,984,520 votes, and Obi, who received 6,101,533 votes to finish third.
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