By Brave Dickson
The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal is set to deliver its judgment that emanated from the February 25 presidential election.
An impeccable source from the Court of Appeal, Abuja where the tribunal is sitting told our correspondent that judgment will be delivered first week of September but what has not yet been made public is the actual day.
You recall that on August 1, 2023, all the parties in the petitions submitted their final written addresses, praying the tribunal to deliver judgment in line with their reliefs.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP are the major presidential candidates that petitioned the tribunal, seeking for the cancellation of the last presidential election that saw the emergence of Bola Tinubu as president.
The respondents in the matter are INEC, Tinubu and the APC who all prayed the court to uphold the presidential election and dismiss the petitions of Obi and Atiku.
While Obi is praying the court to cancel the presidential election because Tinubu did not score 25 percent votes in the FCT; Atiku is asking the tribunal to either declare him the winner of the election or order for a rerun poll.
But Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun (SAN) had used section 134 subsection 2 of the 1999 constitution as amended to argue that the FCT is counted as a state during election, adding that not scoring 25 percent votes in the FCT can not prevent a candidate from winning a presidential election.
Having received all submissions brought by parties involved in the presidential election case, the ball is now in the court of the tribunal to decide the outcome of the matter.
