Posted by The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), and the President Bola Tinubu and his vice, Senator Kashim Shettima, have filed objections to the appeal.
The party argued that Tinubu and Shetima’s complaints were unfounded and without merit.
By retaining Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume (SAN) as its lead counsel, the appellant argued that the notice of preliminary objection is not only without merit but also deceptive in law because it only attacks some grounds of the notice of appeal while leaving out other grounds.
Ume argued in particular that the APM’s grounds 4, 8, 9, and 10 were good and competent grounds of appeal, and that the third and fourth respondents’ (Tinubu and Shetima) preliminary objection only challenged the competence of grounds 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7.
According to the APM’s lead counsel, “the law is trite that where a respondent to an appeal intends to challenge the competence of certain grounds of appeal as contained in the notice of appeal, he shall file a motion on notice and not a notice of preliminary objection as the 3rd and 4th respondents have erroneously done.” This argument was made in response to the preliminary objection filed by the third and fourth respondents.
The senior counsel argued that the notice of preliminary objection filed by the third and fourth respondents in the instant appeal is incompetent and subject to being struck out or dismissed because it was filed instead of a motion on notice, as was held in Eneyo & Ors V Ngere & Ors (2022) LPELR -5880 (Supreme Court).
Furthermore, the appellant argued that the notice of preliminary objection filed by the third and fourth respondents was ineffective because “all the legal submissions made in support of the notice of preliminary objection were exclusively in a “written address” attached to the notice and not a word, phrase, or sentence was made in the brief of argument in support of the notice.”
APM has filed a notice of appeal with the Supreme Court under the file number SC/CV/936/2023, arguing that the Supreme Court’s February 26 ruling declaring Tinubu the winner of the Presidential election was a violation of Section 142 (1) of the 1999 Constitution.
The party had appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the PEPC’s ruling was unfair and had led to a miscarriage of justice on its behalf.
It also asked the Supreme Court to rule that Tinubu was unable to run for president under the APC because of a violation of Article 142, Section 1, of the 1999 Constitution.
The withdrawal of Kabir Masari as the APC’s vice presidential candidate automatically constituted the withdrawal and invalidation of Tinubu’s candidature for president, as the joint-ticket principle is enshrined in section 142(1) of the 1999 constitution.
It is equally urgent that the court issue an order declaring all of Tinubu’s votes in the contentious election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be null and void due to his disqualification as an APC candidate.
The APM appealed the PEPC’s decision to dismiss its petition for lack of locus standi on September 6 on ten reasons, which its legal team distilled into three concerns.
The APM claimed that the PEPC carefully neglected to take into account sections 29, 31, 33, and 34 of the Electoral Act, 2022, as well as sections 130, 137, 139, 142, and 239 of the 1999 Constitution, in determining whether or not Tinubu and Shettima’s election was legitimate.
The PEPC made a legal mistake when it construed Section 142 (1) of the 1999 Constitution to mean that the petition in question had to do with an election.
That its petition was based on more than just nomination alone; that Tinubu, the third respondent, ran for president without a lawful running mate was its primary argument.
That the PEPC accidentally lost jurisdiction when it removed Kabir Masari’s name from the petition, arguing that its complaint is not based on sections 285 (9) or 285 (14) of the 1999 Constitution.