Tribunal Takes Fresh Decision On INEC, Tinubu’s Request To Dismiss Atiku’s Petition

The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal has reserved rulings in the applications by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President-elect, Bola Tinubu, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) seeking the dismissal of the petition by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

OsunDaily News recalls that the PDP and Atiku had in an application on May 5 filed by their team of lawyers, led by Chris Uche (SAN), prayed the tribunal sitting inside the Court of Appeal in Abuja, to allow its proceedings to be televised.

Atiku and PDP contended that the petitions against Tinubu were a matter of public interest in which millions of Nigerian citizens and voters are stakeholders, with the constitutional right to be part of the proceedings.

In a counter-application, INEC, Tinubu, and the APC are praying the court either dismiss the petition in whole or some of its paragraphs and other accompanying processes filed by the petitioners for offending the provisions of the law.

After taking arguments from lawyers to parties, Justice Tsammani announced that the rulings have been reserved to be delivered on the day of judgment in the main petition.

Lawyers who moved the applications for INEC, Tinubu, and APC – Kemi Pinheiro, Yusuf Ali, and Lateef Fagbemi prayed to the court to grant the reliefs in their applications, seven in all.

However, Uche (SAN) in counter-argument, urged the court to dismiss all the applications and proceed to hear his clients on merit.

The court has adjourned further pre-hearing sessions in the petition till Saturday for parties to agree on the schedule to be adopted for the hearing of the petition.

The court has risen briefly, to resume shortly to commence further pre-hearing in the petition by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi.