Tinubu is evading service of process, Atiku and Obi complain

ABUJA– Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, and Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party, have accused President-elect Bola Tinubu of avoiding petitions they filed to overturn his election.

As a result, the duo has re-appealed to the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, with ex-parte applications, requesting permission to serve the petitions on Tinubu via substituted means.

It should be noted that Tinubu, who was declared the winner of the presidential election on March 1, is currently out of the country.

In their applications to the court, Atiku and Obi complained that all attempts to serve their petitions on him personally were futile.

Meanwhile, the court said it would hear Atiku and Obi’s applications by 11 a.m. today due to an affidavit of urgency that accompanied the motion ex-parte.

It will be remembered that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, as the winner of the presidential election, beating out 17 other candidates.

According to INEC, Tinubu received 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku, who received 6,984,520 votes, and Obi of the LP, who received 6,101,533 votes.

However, both Atiku and Obi rejected the election results, claiming that they were rigged in Tinubu’s favor.

Aside from accusing INEC of violating its own electoral regulations and guidelines, the petitioners also claimed Tinubu was not legally qualified to run for president.

Furthermore, they claimed that he did not receive the greatest number of lawfully cast votes in the election, and that votes credited to the APC candidate amounted to wasted votes as a result of corrupt practices that marred the election.

Atiku also claimed that the electoral body used a third-party device to intercept and divert votes to the APC and its candidate.

While both Obi and Atiku claimed to have won the election, they asked the court to either declare them winners or to order a new election.

Both petitioners requested that the court order INEC to withdraw the Certificate of Return it had previously issued to Tinubu of the APC.

(TNT)

TNT Newsline

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