PRESIDENT Mohammadu Buhari has urged opposition parties to accept courts’ verdicts on the presidential election.

Buhari said opposition parties and their presidential candidates should accept courts’ decisions on their respective cases and be willing to unite for the country’s growth.

Buhari said this in his farewell message broadcast nationwide early Sunday, May 28.

After the declaration of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the 2023 presidential election, opposition parties, including the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), challenged the election result.

They described the poll as a “sham election” with “massive manipulation.”

The PDP and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, filed a petition challenging the result declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

They alleged that irregularities in thousands of polling units marred the poll.

Abubakar is asking the court to declare him Nigeria’s president-elect or nullify the election and order a rerun.

Similarly, the LP candidate, Peter Obi, who came third in the election, also filed a petition challenging Tinubu’s victory and asking the court to declare him the winner or cancel the election and order a rerun.

The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) equally lodged a petition to challenge the outcome of the presidential election.

Speaking on the election petitions against the president-elect, Buhari said political parties and their candidates should be willing to accept the court rulings on their cases.

“Irrespective of the outcome of the various cases, I urge all parties involved to accept the decision of our courts and join hands to build a better Nigeria.

“As your President, I call on all of us to bring to bear the strength of our individualism, the power of our unity, and the convictions of our beliefs to make Nigeria work better and together with one spirit and one purpose,” he said.

Buhari saluted the opposition for trusting the country’s judicial system with their grievances against the election.

He asked that the parties prioritise the country’s growth above all else.

“I salute the doggedness and resilience of all the presidential candidates and their political parties for believing in our judicial system by taking their grievances with the election results to the court.

“In the course of the campaigns, we had argued and disagreed on how to make Nigeria better, but we never disagreed or had any doubts that Nigeria has to be better,” he said.

The ICIR reported that the presidential election tribunal has merged the petitions challenging the election.

The court has also set May 30 as the date for the commencement of the hearing of the consolidated petition.

Meanwhile, Tinubu will be inaugurated as Nigeria’s president on Monday, May 29.