Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last presidential election, on Thursday stormed the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to witness proceedings in his petition challenging Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winners of the election.
I am at the Court of Appeal, the venue of the 2023 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), to observe the proceedings of today's hearing. -AA pic.twitter.com/gnfHIgJYtY
— Atiku Abubakar (@atiku) May 11, 2023
Atiku had asked the tribunal sitting in Abuja to declare him Nigeria’s President-elect.
Alternatively, Atiku urged the court to cancel the election and order a fresh election due to alleged irregularities that marred the February 25 poll in thousands of polling units across the country.
These are part of the seven prayers anchored on five grounds in the petition he filed against the victory of Tinubu.
His team of senior lawyers led by Joe-Kyari Gadzama, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), filed the petition at the Presidential Election Petition Court on Tuesday, beating the 21-day statutory deadline set for filing such cases beginning from 1 March when INEC announced the final results of the election.
The petition, jointly filed by Atiku and the PDP as co-petitioners, named INEC, Mr Tinubu and the APC as respondents.
However, the former vice president arrived the court on Thursday at about 8:30 am to witness submissions in his motion on notice seeking live coverage of the court by the media.
Atiku was accompanied to the court by the leaders of the PDP, followers, sympathisers and business associates.
It was also noted that security has been beefed up to prevent breaches, in view of the status of Atiku as a former Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Although Atiku’s petition was initially slated for 2pm for pre-hearing, it was gathered that it was brought forward to this morning.
Peter Obi, the candidate of the Labour Party, LP, was on Monday and Wednesday at the Court where he witnessed proceedings in his own petition.