The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja has ordered that copies of petitions seeking to nullify Bola Tinubu’s election be served on him.
On Friday, a three-judge panel of the court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh directed that the petitions be served on Tinubu via his political party, the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Separate ex-parte applications were filed before the court by PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party candidate Peter Obi.
Atiku and Obi accused the President-elect Tinubu, of deliberately avoiding the service of their petitions on him.
They told the court that several attempts to serve the petitions on Tinubu were unsuccessful.
According to the petitioners, the President-elect purposefully avoided them in order to frustrate their efforts to hand him copies of the petition as required by law.
As a result, the petitioners sought the Court’s intervention, citing Sections 6(6a) and 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act, and Paragraph 8 of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act 2022.
Both Atiku and Obi further supported their ex-parte motions dated March 23, with affidavits of urgency and non-service, even as they persuaded the court to hear the applications, outside the pre-hearing session of their substantive petitions.
While Atiku’s application was moved on Friday by his legal team led by Mr Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, that of Obi and LP was moved by Mr. Ikechukwu Ezechukwu, SAN.
“Having heard the applications by counsel to the petitioners, including the affidavit in support,” the panel led by Justice Ikyegh ruled.
The panel also allowed the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, to serve its own petition on Tinubu through alternative means.
