According to The Cable, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, along with running mate Kashim Shettima, have filed a lawsuit at the Federal High Court in Kano to prevent any attempts to halt the collation and announcement of the presidential election results.
The suit names the Labour Party (LP), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as defendants. Currently, the presidential candidates for the PDP and LP are behind in the results that have been announced by INEC so far. On Monday, the agents for the opposition parties walked out of the National Collation Centre in Abuja after INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu refused to address their concerns about the validity of the results from Ekiti and Kwara states, both of which were won by the APC. On Tuesday, the PDP and LP presidential candidates, along with their running mates, called for the halt of the collation of election results and the resignation of the INEC chairman. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who had endorsed the PDP’s vice-presidential candidate, alleged fraud in the election and called for the cancellation of results in areas where the election was conducted without following the law.
In suit FHC/KN/CS/43/2023, filed by Mr. Tinubu, and his running mate Mr. Shettima, the plaintiffs requested that the court prevent the defendants from stopping the collation process. In their affidavit, they asserted that no individual or entity has the authority to halt the announcement of the election results collated from various polling units. They further argued that based on the results from their situation rooms in different states, they had fulfilled the legal requirements to be declared the winners of the election and subsequently sworn in as the president and vice president-elect. The plaintiffs claimed that the opposition parties and Mr. Obasanjo had put significant pressure on INEC to halt the collation process, thus necessitating urgent court intervention to prevent further interference. They sought an order of injunction to restrain political parties, their agents, supporters, or any other person from taking any judicial or extrajudicial action that could impede INEC from completing the conduct of the presidential election held on February 25.