Presidency: AA moves to withdraw petition against Tinubu

The Action Alliance (AA) has applied to withdraw its petition filed at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) against the outcome of the last presidential election. The party filed a motion to that effect on May 3.

The motion is listed as the first issue to be treated by the PEPC during its inaugural sitting on May 8. Listed as respondents to the petition, marked: CA/PEPC/01/2023 are the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Hamza Al-Mustapha.

According to the court’s schedule for Monday, the four other petitions have been listed for pre-hearing session. The four petitions are by the Action Peoples Party (APP), marked: CA/PEPC/02/2023; Peter Obi & Labour Party (LP) marked: CA/PEPC/03/2023; Allied Peoples Movement (APM) marked: CA/PEPC/04/2023, and Atiku Abubakar & the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023.

The AA, in its petition, claimed that its presidential candidate, Solomon Okanigbuan, was excluded from participating in the election, a ground, it argued, was sufficient to void the February 25 presidential election.

The APC and Tinubu, in their separate responses, quarried the competence of the petition which was filed by a faction of the party led by Adekunle Omo-Aje. They argued that the complaint on which the petition is based, which is nomination, is pre-election matter which could not be raised post-election.

The respondents also contend that the issue about which faction has the power to field candidate for the party was an internal affair on which the court lacked jurisdiction. APC argued that Al-Mustapha, a former Chief Security Officer to the late Gen. Sani Abacha, was the candidate of the AA, adding that he participated in the election and scored 14,542 votes.

The party added that there was no evidence that the AA conducted a valid primary from which Okanigbuan emerged as a candidate, noting that Al-Mustapha was recognised by INEC as a candidate. The APC stated that Okanigbuan was not nominated and sponsored by the AA as its candidate to contest the presidential elections, adding the party “was not and could not have been excluded from the election as it participated in the presidential election with the 4th respondent (Al-Mustapha) as its candidate” who scored 14,542 votes.