The presidential election petition tribunal yesterday ordered that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi should serve president-elect, Bola Tinubu, copies of petitions seeking to nullify his election through substituted means.
The three-man panel of the tribunal led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh ordered that the petitions should be served on Tinubu, through his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).
This is even as a separate ex-parte applications were brought before the court by the candidate of the
Atiku and Tinubu accused Tinubu of deliberately avoiding the service of their petitions on him.
They told the court that several attempts they made to effect service of the petitions on Tinubu, proved abortive.
According to the petitioners, the president-elect deliberately made himself elusive with a view to fr¥strating their effort to hand him copies of the petition as required by the law.
Consequently, relying on Section 6(6a) and 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act, as well as Paragraph 8 of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act 2022, the petitioners sought the intervention of the Court.
“Having heard the applications by counsel to the petitioners including the affidavit in support, the applications are hereby granted”, the Justice Ikyegh-led panel ruled.
