Atiku in court as parties adopt final addresses

From Our Correspondent, Abuja

Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), physically attended the Presidential Election Petition Court, (PEPC) proceedings on Tuesday in Abuja.

This is as parties set to adopt their final written addresses.

TheNewsZenith reports that adopting final addresses is the precursor to fixing a date for judgement in the petition.

Atiku and the PDP, in the petition, are challenging the outcome of the Feb. 25 presidential election.

The Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel of the court had on the last adjourned date directed parties to prepare their final briefs of argument and appear before it for adoption.

The court, in a notice to the parties, invited them to adopt their written address.

It asked to address the court with respect to petition filed against President Bola Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima.

The petitioners are praying the court to nullify the presidential election.

TheNewsZenith recalls that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had, on March 1, announced Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as winner of the presidential election.

INEC declared that Tinubu scored a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat the two major contenders, Atiku of the PDP, who polled 6,984,520 votes and Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who came third with 6,101,533 votes.

However, dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, candidates of PDP and LP approached the court to invalidate the election.

The duo, in their separate petitions, claimed that they won the election.

They also challenged Tinubu’s eligibility to contest the presidential election.

Both Atiku and Obi are praying the court to nullify the election and order a fresh presidential election.

They are also praying the court to exclude of President Tinubu from the would be fresh election.

This is as they argued that ab-initio, he is not qualified to participate.

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