By Kamsi Anayo
The Court of Appeal in Abuja has granted an order for the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi to serve the All Progressive Congress ( APC) candidate Bola Tinubu a copy of the petition challenging his declarations as President- elect.
The three-man panel led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh, directed that the petitions should be served on Tinubu, through his political party, the APC.
This followed rulings on three separate ex-parte applications submitted by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar and his counterpart in the Labour Party, Peter Obi.
Both the candidates of the PDP Atiku Abubakar and that of the LP, Peter Obi are challenging the declaration of Tinubu as the President- elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
They had informed the court that several attempts made to effect service of the petitions on Tinubu, had proved abortive.
The petitioners said the President-elect had deliberately made himself elusive with a view to frustrating their effort to hand him copies of the petition as required by the law.
Consequently, relying on Section 6(6a) and 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act, as well as Paragraph 8 of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act 2022, the petitioners sought the intervention of the Court.
The Counsel to the LP candidate, Ikechukwu Ezechukwu, in an exparte application, asked the appellate court to grant Obi and the Labour Party leave to serve the petition on Tinubu and the Vice President-Elect, Kashim Shettima, through substituted means.
In the ex parte application, Mr Obi noted that the bailiff of the Court of Appeal made “unsuccessful attempts to serve the petition personally on” Messrs Tinubu and Shettima.
He argued that it has been necessary to serve the court filings through “substituted means” on Tinubu and Shettima owing to heightened security protection around the president-elect and vice president-elect.
The lawyer also urged the court to permit Obi to serve the court documents on Tinubu and Shettima through the office of the legal adviser of the APC.
Ruling on the application, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, led by Haruna Tsammani, granted Obi’s request.
The court ordered that the petition be served on Tinubu and Shettima “by delivering…or pasting the petition No:CA/PEPC/03/2023 and all other processes filed in the petition at either the office of the National Legal Adviser of the” APC or…with any other officer of the APC “at its National Secretariat at
No.40 Blantyre Street, Off Ademola Adetokunbo Crescent, Wuse 2, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
