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A faction of the Motion Alliance (AA) has requested the Presidential Election Petition Court docket in Abuja to nullify Bola Tinubu’s victory as Nigeria’s president-elect.
Mr Tinubu was the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) within the 25 February presidential election.
He defeated the Peoples Democratic Get together (PDP) presidential flag bearer, Atiku Abubakar, Labour Get together’s Peter Obi, and 15 others within the race, after scoring 8.8 million votes.
However the Motion Alliance has urged the court docket to nullify the polls owing to alleged refusal of the Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) to add the identify of its precise presidential candidate – Solomon-David Okanigbuan – to its portal for the February ballot.
The case is one in a collection of petitions that varied political events have filed to problem the result of the presidential election.
PREMIUM TIMES reported the petitions of three different political events – the Peoples Democratic Get together, the Labour Get together, and the All Peoples Motion (APM) – filed on the election petition court docket in Abuja.
In its petition filed on 16 March, the AA and Mr Okanigbuan as co-petitioners, mentioned regardless of subsisting court docket orders recognise Mr Okanigbuan because the genuine presidential standard-bearer, the electoral umpire as a substitute uploaded the identify of Hamza Al-Mustapha.
INEC had recognised Mr Al-Mustapha, a former chief safety officer to late Nigerian dictator, Sani Abacha, AA’s presidential candidate for the election.
Mr Al-Mustapha polled 14,542 votes within the election.
Management disaster
The Nationwide Chairman of Motion Alliance, Adekunle Omo-Aje, had mentioned in January that Mr Al-Mustapha was not the genuine presidential candidate of the social gathering.
He spoke in opposition to the background of the management tussle rocking his social gathering, which gave rise to the emergence of two presidential candidates.
It could be recalled {that a} nationwide congress of the social gathering organised by the Omo-Aje management final 12 months and monitored by INEC, produced Mr Okanigbuan because the social gathering’s presidential candidate.
Nevertheless, Mr Al-Mustapha received the presidential major election performed by the faction led by Kenneth Udeze, on 9 June 2022, in Abuja.
The electoral fee had recognised all of the candidates introduced to it by the Udeze-led faction of the social gathering, regardless of court docket judgements declaring that he was not a member of the social gathering. The courts had additionally ordered INEC to just accept and publish the names of candidates despatched to it by the Omo-Aje management of the AA.
Regardless of the orders of the Federal Excessive Court docket and the Court docket of Enchantment each in Abuja, Mr Udeze remains to be listed on INEC web site because the nationwide chairman of AA.
Decrying INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu’s refusal to recognise Mr Okanigbuan, Mr Omo-Aje had mentioned in January, “We fulfilled all INEC electoral pointers and necessities in keeping with the Nigerian Structure with the fee, but he (Mr Yakubu) is hell bent on excluding Motion Alliance from the approaching 2023 Normal Elections.”
Grounds for petition
Laying the idea for the grievance, the AA mentioned it introduced Mr Okanigbuan to INEC as its candidate to contest the presidential election held on 25 February, however INEC “unlawfully excluded him from the election.”
The social gathering contended that the electoral fee’s exclusion of its “genuine” candidate from the race renders your complete train “invalid for non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.”
“The first respondent (INEC) intentionally refused to obey the order of the court docket that it ought to add the names as ordered by court docket,” the petition acknowledged.
The social gathering additional argued that even if Mr Okanigbuan was validly chosen to symbolize within the presidential ballot, INEC “unlawfully excluded him from the mentioned election and moderately imposed a sure Hamza Al-Mustapha” as its candidate “when the mentioned Hamza Al-Mustapha is just not a member of” the social gathering.
Citing provisions of the Nigerian structure, AA famous that solely a political social gathering and never INEC is “authorised to appoint, sponsor and canvass for votes for candidates at any election.”
The primary petitioner argued that it was “incorrect” of INEC to have excluded Mr Okanigbuan from the presidential election, including that the motion amounted to a disenfranchisement of its “quite a few supporters who couldn’t vote as a result of their most popular candidate was not on the poll.”
The petitioners’ lawyer, Dauda Usman, urged the court docket to put aside Mr Tinubu’s election and order INEC to conduct a recent presidential ballot.
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