By Musa Baba Adamu
The presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku and that of the Labour Party, Peter Obi have filed their respective Notice of Appeal to appeal the judgement of the Presidential Elecltion Petition Tribunal (PEPT) at the Supreme Court.
Recall that the PEPT has on September 6, 2023 dismissed petitions of the candidates in their entirety for lack of merit, upholding the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as winner of the 2023 presidential election.
But in the Notice of Appeal predicated on 35 grounds and filed yesterday, Atiku insisted that the Tribunal in the judgment delivered by Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani committed grave error and miscarriage of justice in its findings and conclusion in the petition challenging the declaration of Tinubu as President by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
The Notice of Appeal filed by Atiku’s lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, is praying the Supreme Court to set aside the whole findings and conclusions of the Tribunal on the grounds that they did not represent the true picture of the grounds of his petition.
Among others, the former Vice President maintained that the Tribunal erred in law when it failed to nullify the presidential election held on February 25, 2023, on the grounds of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022, when by evidence before the tribunal, INEC conducted the election based on grave and gross misrepresentation contrary to the principles of the Electoral Act 2022 and based on the “doctrine of legitimate expectation.”
In the same vein, Mr Obi his party, the Labour Party also filed their Notice of Appeal at the Supreme court against the judgement of the Tribunal which affirmed the election of President Bola Tinubu.
Obi’s Appeal is contained in a 73-page Notice of and premised on on 51 grounds.
