THE Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) has struck out the petition of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) against the declaration of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 election.
The court headed by Haruna Tsammani declared that the issue of qualification or nomination of any candidate is a pre-election matter.
According to Tsammani, a political party cannot impose credibility status on any candidate unless prescribed by sections 65, 131 and 137 of the Constitution.
The court also stated that the APM should have approached a Federal High Court within 14 days before the conduct of the presidential election.
The panel added that it is inevitable when a respondent replies based on new issues, the petitioner should react to the new issues, and if the petitioner does not respond to it, it will mean the petitioner has accepted the respondent’s stance on the contemporary issues.
The court declared that the case had no locus standi and struck it out.
The APM closed its case against President Tinubu’s election in June after calling one witness to support its petition.
In the petition, the APM and its Presidential candidate, Chichi Ojei, argued that the APC improperly sponsored Tinubu since he nominated Kashim Shettima as his vice-presidential candidate.
It claims that Shettima accepted to be APC’s vice-presidential candidate while still the party’s candidate for the Borno Central senatorial district.
The APM argued that due to the requirements of sections 131(c) and 142 of the Constitution and section 35 of the Electoral Act 2022, Tinubu was not eligible to run in the election at the time of the election.
A reporter with the ICIR
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