They are urging the tribunal not to nullify the results of the February 25 presidential election.
President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima have made a fervent appeal to the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
They are urging the tribunal not to nullify the results of the February 25 presidential election, despite the controversy surrounding the 25 percent threshold in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The plea comes in response to the petition filed by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi. Tinubu and Shettima’s lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun, delivered a final address stressing the insignificance of the petition’s arguments and witness testimonies, which they deemed “frivolous, bogus, and based on hearsay.”
Olanipekun urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition on grounds of lacking merit and substance. He vehemently opposed the petitioners’ claim that the election should be invalidated for failing to obtain 25 percent of the votes in the FCT. According to Olanipekun, the use of “and” in the constitution is conjunctive, not disjunctive, and thus does not support the challengers’ remote contention
The lead counsel further emphasised that judges cannot perform miracles in civil claims or fabricate evidence to aid a plaintiff’s case. In his address, he rejected the notion of judges acting like oracles of life and making proclamations without solid legal backing