Presidential Election Tribunal To Commence Hearing, May 8

The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal has slated Monday, May 8, for the hearing of the petitions challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the President-elect.
This means the legal battle by candidates disputing the announced results would resume on that date.
According to Tinubu’s legal team, Monday’s hearing is a pre-hearing session. The hearing was set aside to cross-check if there are any applications before the main hearing will start. The timetable for the hearing of substantive matters will be set after the pre-hearing.
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, on March 1, declared Mr Tinubu the president-elect after his party scored the highest number of votes in the February 25th poll.
He had polled 8.8 million votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 6.9 million and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) who amassed 6.1 million among 15 others.
Alhaji Abubakar and Mr Obi have both disputed the results and filed separate petitions seeking orders to annul the election or declare them the winners of the poll.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is praying the court to cancel the election and order a fresh poll due to alleged irregularities that marred the February 25 exercise in thousands of polling units.
Alhaji Abubakar and the PDP argued that as of March 1, when Sen. Tinubu was declared the winner of the election, the entire results and accreditation data from polling units had not been transmitted and uploaded by INEC.
Peter Obi, in his petition, argued that the election was characterised by various irregularities, including the non-qualification of Sen. Tinubu and his running mate, Kashim Shettima, to contest the election.
He also alleged that Sen. Tinubu failed to win a majority of lawful votes and also one-quarter of lawful votes cast in the FCT.
The tribunal stopped receiving replies from the petitioners on April 23.