Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPC Court, Merges Parties Petition, Fixes May 30 For Next Hearing

The Presidential Election Petition Court has consolidated all the petitions filed by the three petitioners, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with Atiku Abubakar as the Presidential candidate, Labour Party (LP) with Peter Obi as the Presidential candidate, and the Allied Peoples’ Movement (APM), and their presidential candidate Princess ChiChi Ojei.

The court fixed May 30 for the commencement of trial in the three petitions during which the petitioners will be expected to call their first sets of witnesses. The Chairman of the Tribunal, Justice Haruna Tsamani, made this known on Tuesday May 23, while presenting the court pre-hearing report.

All three parties are challenging the outcome of the February 25 presidential election, in which the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Tinubu, was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

It will be recalled that Tinubu got 8,794,726 votes, while PDP’s Atiku Abubakar scored 6,984,520 votes and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi, followed closely with a tally of 6,101,533.

The Tribunal, in Tuesday’s proceeding at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, said the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, had three weeks to prove its case.