The Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja has dismissed the petition filed by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) to contest the qualification of President Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima as candidates of the APC.
Justice Haruna Tsammani who read the lead judgment ruled that that the petition was incompetent.
He said that tribunal lacks the jurisdiction to hear the petition which contained pre election matters and ought to have been filed at a high court.
The judge also held that the stipulated 180 days period for the petition to be determined had lapsed.
Justice Tsammani ruled that APM which claimed that Tinubu and Shettima were not validly nominated to contest the February 25 lacked the powers to do so as it was the internal affairs of a political party.
“In Alhassan and others versus Ishaku and others, it was held that an election tribunal has no jurisdiction on the primary of a political party,” he said.
According to him, the matters of qualification and disqualification are guided by the provisions of sections 131 and 137(1)(a)(j) of the Nigerian Constitution.
The court also dismissed the petition filed by the APM against the Independent National Electoral Commission and four others.
The respondent in the petition as 1st to 5th are: INEC, All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and Kabiru Masari.
The APM had argued that sections 131(c) and 142(2) of the Nigerian Constitution, 1999 and Section 133 of the Electoral Act made the nomination of Tinubu and his running made invalid.
