By Kamsi Anayo, And John Ugo
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party (LP),counterpart , Mr Peter Obi, on Tuesday officially lodged appeal at the Supreme Court against President Bola Tinubu’s election.
Atiku filed 35 grounds of appeal before the Supreme Court against Tinubu.
Obi officially lodged an appeal at the Supreme Court seeking nullification of the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) that upheld President Tinubu’s victory in the last election.
The former vice president, through his team of lawyers led by Chief Chris Uche, SAN, is asking the Supreme Court to set aside the judgement the Court of Appeal delivered on Sept. 6, which upheld the victory of Bola Tinubu in the last election.
Atiku told the apex court that the judgement of the PEPT, which struck out his petition was not only perverse, but amount to miscarriage of justice against him.
The PDP presidential!candidate argued that the PEPT panel erred in law, when it failed to void the presidential election on the grounds of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022, even when evidence that was presented before it, showed that the Independent National Electoral Commission— INEC, acted in breach of extant laws and regulations guiding the conduct of elections.
He further accused the PEPT of reaching its unanimous decision based on gross misconstruction and misrepresentation of provisions of both the 1999 Constitution, as amended, and the Electoral Act, 2022.
The Labour Party and its presidential candidate Peter Obi and LP’s team of lawyers led by Livy Uzokwu (SAN) approached the apex court on 51 grounds
The grounds are “termed an error in law to prove that President Bola Tinubu who was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) did not win the election and that it was wrong for both INEC and the PEPC to declare him winner of the election when many incontrovertible points were proving otherwise.”
The National Publicity Secretary of the Julius Abure led faction of the Labour Party, Obiora Ifoh stated this in a statement on Tuesday.
The statement reads: “In their reliefs Obi and the Labour Party sought from the apex Court, four key points; Allow the Appeal, set aside the perverse Judgment of the PEPC, and grant the Reliefs sought in the petition, either in the main or in the alternative.”
“On the issue of the 25% requirement for Abuja, Obi and the Labour Party listed the particulars of error by the PEPC as follows. That the PEPC failed to appreciate that for the President to assume the office or position of the Governor of Abuja, is also under a mandate to secure 25% of the votes cast in the FCT.
“They also accused the PEPC of overlooking the fuller purport of section 299 which will be more glaring on a calm examination of section 301 of the constitution.
“No date yet has been fixed for the hearing of the case.”
