The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal for the 2023 presidential poll won by Bola Tinubu is expected to start sitting Tuesday, May 2.
With the conclusion of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, attention has shifted to the election petition tribunals where candidates who contested the elections and are dissatisfied with the outcomes aim to get justice or reclaim what most of them term as their stolen mandate.
The February 25 Presidential Election and the declaration of the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the election have been highly criticized.
Some opposition political parties have expressed dissatisfaction with the conduct of the poll, particularly the failure of INEC to transmit the results of the presidential election electronically with the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) from the polling units to the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) as promised by the nation’s electoral umpire.
First to knock at the gate of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal was Action Alliance (AA) and its presidential candidate, Solomon Okangbuan, who filed their petition against the declaration of Tinubu on March 16.
Action Peoples Party (APP) and Allied Peoples Movement (APM) also filed their petitions to the Tribunal challenging the INEC’s declaration of Bola Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election.
The Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi were not left out.
The petition of Atiku Abubakar of the PDP was filed exactly 21 days after INEC’s Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, declared Tinubu President-elect.
The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, which will sit at the Court of Appeal complex in Abuja, is expected to commence sitting on the 2nd of May.
As the Presidential Election Petition begins sitting, Nigerians expect the judges to uphold the tenets of the judiciary by dispensing justice in line with the rule of law and not in favour of money-bag politicians.
They also expect that the Tribunal would be fair and unbiased in its verdict to further deepen the nation’s democracy.
