ABUJA– The Supreme Court, on Monday, reserved its judgement on the appeal the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, filed to nullify the election of President Bola Tinubu.
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A sevenan panel of the apex court led by Justice Inyang Okoro, okayed the matter for judgement, after all the parties adopted their briefs of argument.
Other members of the apex court panel that heard the matter, were; Justices Uwani Abba-Aji, Lawal Garba, Ibrahim Saulawa, Adamu Jauro, Abubakar Tijjani and Emmanuel Akomaye Agim.
President Tinubu had during the proceedings, addressed the court on why it should not admit his certificate that was released to the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, by the Chicago State University, CSU.
Tinubu, through his team of lawyers led by Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, argued that the foreign depositions that Atiku relied on to apply for the certificate to be admitted in evidence, was done in a private law chamber in the United States of America, USA.
He further argued that the requisite condition precedent was not met by the Applicants to enable the apex court to be able to admit the documents in evidence.
“In the USA, we have their rules, this depositions are not even admissible in their own courts! We have highlighted those rules in our counter affidavit.
“My lords, this is aside from the fact that the depositions were not done in the court, but in private chambers,” Olanipekun added.
More so, he argued that the 180 days period allowed for the hearing of the petition that Atiku and his party filed to nullify the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, had since elapsed.
He said it would therefore be wrong for the apex court to admit a fresh evidence at the stage of appeal, adding that Atiku ought to have joined the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as an interested party in the US proceedingspf
