Tinubu fails to stop court from merging Obi, Atiku’s petitions against him

The Presidential Election Petition Court has decided to merge all the petitions challenging the election of Bola Tinubu as Nigeria's president into one.

Justice Haruna Tsammani, the Chairman of the Presidential Election Petition Court announced the development on Tuesday, May 23, 2023, while reading the pre-hearing report on the three different petitions against the election of the president-elect.

The petitioners are the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, the Labour Party (LP) and Peter Obi, its presidential candidate and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).

The judge who also presented the trial schedule said the three petitions would be heard as one, adding that the hearing of the petition would commence on Tuesday, May 30, 2023.

Election petitions tribunal. [Pulse] Pulse Nigeria

The tribunal has only 180 days to determine the petitions and that expires on September 16, 2023.

However, Tinubu had earlier opposed the consolidation of the three petitions against his electoral victory.

The president-elect through his team of lawyers led by Akin Olujimi had argued that merging all the petitions would affect his ability to effectively defend all the issues raised against him by the petitioners.

Olujimi said, “My lords, the issue of justice should be a restraint on the power of this court to exercise its discretion in granting the order for consolidation,”

“My lords, when the exercise of power is subject to limitation of some conditions, then it cannot be said that the exercise is mandatory.

“There are issues raised in one petition that are not there in others. The issues vary. The same goes for evidential issues that are based on pleadings that have been exchanged by parties in this case”.

He urged the judge not to merge the petitions saying it would be difficult for his team to consent to consolidation of the petitions.