Posted by On Friday, the Presidential Election case Court deferred judgment on a case filed by the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, to have President Bola Ahmed Tinubu disqualified from the presidential election held on February 25 due to his fraudulent nomination.
After the parties adopted their closing briefs, each making separate requests, the court postponed reaching a decision indefinitely.
Tinubu’s Vice Presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, is being challenged by APM in court for allegedly allowing himself to be nominated twice for various seats.
A former candidate for the Borno Central Senatorial District, Shettima was elevated to the position of Vice Presidential Candidate by the All Progressives Congress, APC, after one Kabiru Masari withdrew as Tinubu’s first running mate.
According to the APM, Shettima and the APC broke the law by allegedly nominating themselves twice.
On Friday, however, when the final addresses were approved, APM had their attorney, Andrew Malgwu SAN, approach the court to reject Tinubu and Shettima’s nomination on the grounds that it was illegitimate, illegal, and unjustified.
However, INEC, the first respondent in the petition, asked the court to throw out the case because it was without merit.
Lateef Olasunkanmi Fagbemi SAN, representing the APC, argued that the petition should be dismissed because it was frivolous, annoying, and unjustified.
Fagbemi contended that the petition was moot since the Supreme Court had already ruled that political parties had no right to meddle in one another’s nominating processes.
Tinubu and Shettima, who were represented by renowned attorney Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, made a similar argument, demanding that the APM’s petition be thrown out on the grounds that it should never have been filed.
After the Supreme Court ruled that no party has the authority to meddle in how another party nominated its candidates for electoral seats, Olanipekun told the Court that the petition ought to have been withdrawn honorably.
The Presiding Justice, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, postponed the verdict until further notice shortly after the proceedings concluded.
When asked what would happen to the lawyers waiting outside the courtroom, Justice Tsammani said they would be informed as soon as the verdict was available.