The upcoming swearing-in of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, on May 29, has been characterized by Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and candidate for president of the United States in the general elections of 2023, as a ritual that cannot bind the court.
Immediately after the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja consolidated the petitions filed by the PDP standard bearer with those filed by the candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and the Allied Peoples Movement on Tuesday, Atiku’s lead attorney, Chris Uche, SAN, expressed hope of reclaiming Atiku’s mandate and asserted that the court had the authority to remove Tinubu from office even after he had been sworn in.
He indicated that a day after Tinubu was sworn in, the hearing on the consolidated petitions would start.
Uche said, “I have been asked about May 29, I want to assure people that swearing in is only a ceremony that does not in any way tie the hands of the court. The taking of the oath binds the person who takes the oath and not the court.
“The court has given you its timelines for parties to present their case. We are happy that with the development, the petitions will be expeditiously determined.”
Remember that Atiku’s plea to have three weeks to present evidence before the court was granted by the five-member panel, which Justice Haruna Tsammani chairs, during the presentation of the panel’s pre-hearing report on Tuesday.
Atiku claimed that Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of the presidential election was “invalid due to non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022” in his joint appeal with the PDP, labeled CA/PEPC/05/2023.
In addition to asking the court to declare him the victor of the presidential election after receiving the second-highest number of votes cast, Atiku and the PDP also requested that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, remove the Certificate of Return that had been given to Tinubu.
The President-elect, Tinubu, had prohibited members of his legal team from speaking to reporters throughout the hearing of the petitions that sought to void his election victory.
