Election Tribunal: Weeks after failed attempts, Peter Obi finally serves Tinubu copies of petition
The Nigerian Labour Party candidates, Mr Peter Obi and Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed and the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr Atiku Abubakar, have finally seRved copies of their petitions filed to the APC candidate and President-elect.
The Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s camp said they received a copy of the petition on Tuesday, after weeks of claims from the opposition camp that the APC was avoiding being served.
The petition is connected to the contestable presidential election, which took place on 25 February 2023 in Nigeria.
The PDP and the APC had accused Mr Tinubu of flying out of the country as part of his strategy to be served. The LP and PDP said several attempts to serve the party and their candidate had been unsuccessful until now.
On Monday, 27 March, Mr Babatunde Ogala, the Legal Director of the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, confirmed that his principal had yet to receive a notice before he flew out of the country.
The spokesperson for the Ob-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Yunusa Tanko, had lamented during a phone conversation, as reported by Punch Newspaper that “That man (Tinubu) practically ran out of the country after evading being served the notice. But our party will serve him the notice through the APC. I am sure they must have received it by now.”
The two contesting parties requested a leave to serve the petitions to Tinubu through substituted means, that is, through his party, the All Progressives Congress.
On Tuesday, the APC officially received a copy of the notice on behalf of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu.
According to Punch Newspaper’s report, Ogala confirmed, “Yes, we received copies of both Atiku and Obi’s petition yesterday.”
Meanwhile, the APC claimed it is not in a hurry to file a response as the law gives up to 21 days to do that.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Ogala, said, “it says we have up till 21 days to respond,” urging journalists to “wait for the day we will file it. You will surely get to know about it.”
Festus Keyamo, Spokesperson, APC 2023 Presidential Campaign Council; Minister of State, Labour and Employment, said the party “are working on it.”
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