President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, has constituted the National and State Houses of Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal to hear and the determine petitions that may arise from the conduct of bye-elections that were held in Lagos and Oyo states at the weekend.
The elections were held in Surulere 1 Federal Constituency of Lagos State and Saki West State Constituency of Oyo State on Saturday.
The defeated candidates have 21 days to file their petitions while the winners also have the same days to respond.
A statement issued by the secretary of the tribunal, Ibrahim Usman, to notify the public, said the tribunal was constituted according to the powers conferred on the President, Court of Appeal by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and the Electoral Act, 2022.
The statement also revealed that “the chief judge of Lagos State, Justice Kazeem Alogba, has granted the use of the Rosaline Omotosho CourtHouse, Ikeja, Lagos State for the use of the tribunal.”
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Fuad Laguda, defeated his two rivals to win Saturday’s Surulere Federal Constituency 1 bye-election.
Laguda polled 11,203 votes while his closest contenders, Adeola Damilola of the Labour Party (LP) scored 240 votes and Afemikhe Jerry of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) got 278 votes.
In Oyo State, the APC candidate for Saki West Constituency, Ibrahim Shittu, won the election.
Shittu polled 13,850 votes while his closest challenger, Julius Okedoyin of the PDP, scored 13,670.
The Court of Appeal sacked Shittu, the INEC-declared winner of the March 18, 2023 general election and ordered a rerun in two units of the constituency.
