The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal has ruled that it lacks the powers to hear the suit filed by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) challenging the qualifications of President Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima.
Reading the lead judgement on Wednesday, Justice Haruna Tsammani stated that the issues brought before the tribunal are pre-election matters, which ought to have been before a high court.
He further stated that the timeframe of 180 days within which to determine the issue had elapsed.
“In Alhassan and others versus Ishaku and others, it was held that an election tribunal has no jurisdiction over the primary of a political party,” he said.
He further stated that matters of qualification and disqualification are guided by the provisions of Sections 131 and 137(1)(a)(j) of the Nigerian Constitution.
He ruled that the issue complained about was an internal affair of a political party.
The Alloed People’s Movement had argued that Tinubu and Shettima were not validly nominated to contest the election on February 25. They argue that the combined reading of sections 131(c) and 142(2) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution and Section 133 of the Electoral Act made them invalid.
They further opined that from the date Kabiru Masari announced his withdrawal as an APC placeholder on June 24, 2022, to the date Shettima’s name was forwarded to INEC on July 14, 2022, it had been 21 days, which breached Section 33 of the Electoral Act, 2022, which provides for 14 days for the replacement of a candidate for an election.
