The Presidential Election Petition Court on Tuesday read the pre-hearing report which included the declaration of the court’s decision to consolidate all the petitions seeking to nullify the outcome of the 2023 presidential election. to be heard as one.
In a unanimous decision, a five-member panel of the court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani overruled objections brought by the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, to the merging of the cases.
The court ruled that because the cases all related to the same election, they should be merged and dealt with as a single petition.
As a result, it set May 30 as the date for Labour Party, LP candidate Mr. Peter Obi to file his lawsuit against the outcome of the presidential election held on February 25.
Despite the fact that Obi had previously stated that he would need seven weeks to present his case through 50 witnesses, the court reduced the period to three weeks in its ruling, while giving the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Tinubu, and the Vice President-elect, Senator Kashim Shettima, five days each to defend the petition.
Similarly, the court granted Kabiru Masari, the fourth respondent in the case, three days to defend himself.
The court emphasized that the parties will file final briefs of argument on August 5 in order for it to set a date for judgment.
Aside from Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who came second in the election, and Obi of the LP who came third in the election, the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, equally lodged a petition to challenge the outcome of the presidential election.
Though five petitions were initially filed to challenge the return of Tinubu as the winner of the election, however, the Action Alliance, AA, on May 8, withdrew its case, even as the Action Peoples Party, APP, followed suit two days later by also discontinuing further proceedings on its own petition.
