Jumoke Olasunkanmi
The 5 man panel of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal led by Justice Haruna Tsamani has upheld the declaration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the duly elected presidebt of Nigeria.
The panel of judges declared that he could not be disqualified from the 2023 elections, nor his victory revoked according to Section 137 of the constitution.
President Tinubu’s controversial win at the presidential polls had been challenged by presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alh. Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi, respectively.
The petitioners challenged Tinubu’s victory on grounds of drug trafficking, money laundering and forged certificate and failure to gain 25 percent votes in the country’s capital.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was also accused of manipulating election results.
The Court of Appeal, however, ruled that the petitioners have failed to prove their cases as all petitions brought forward were dismissed.
The court pronounced the drug charges as baseless and dismissed the 25 percent votes as unnecessary.
Justice Tsamani concluded by announcing that President Tinubu is not disqualified from contesting the presidential election and, therefore, will not be stripped of his position as president.
