Confusion As Seven PDP States Withdraw Suit To Nullify Tinubu’s Victory

There was confusion among some Nigerian political gladiators on Friday evening as it emerged that seven Peoples Democratic Party, PDP states who approached the Supreme Court to nullify the election victory of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, had withdrawn their suit.

The states- Adamawa State, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Taraba and Sokoto- through their team of lawyers led by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, on Friday, filed a notice of discontinuance of the case.

The motion for discontinuance came after Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom expressed shock at the suit saying that he never gave permission for the state to be joined as a plaintiff.

GWG.ng reports that Governor Emmanuel was the chairman of the PDP presidential campaign council spoke to reporters as he returned to Uyo on Friday evening. It is not known if he was instrumental to the joint withdrawal of the suit.

It is, however, not known if the decision by the states to withdraw the suit against Tinubu is a matter of strategy given the assertion by the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar that the declaration would be challenged.

The plaintiffs had gone before the apex court to challenge the outcome of Presidential and National Assembly elections that held on February 25, insisting that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, acted in breach of the Electoral Act, 2022.

The plaintiffs maintained that election results from the 36 states of the federation and the FCT, were not properly transmitted and collated by INEC, as prescribed by the Electoral Act.

The six states, which are currently under the control of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the suit marked: SC/CV/354/2023, further alleged that INEC pulled down its portal harbouring the Regulations and Guidelines it earlier set for the elections.

Consequently, they applied for an order of the apex court, mandating “a holistic review of all results so far announced by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the INEC which were carried out other than through the manner prescribed by the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022, the INEC Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections, 2022; and the INEC Manual for Election Officials”.

As well as an order, “directing a wholistic review of all results so far announced by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which were carried out other than through the manner prescribed by the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022, the INEC Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections, 2022; and the INEC Manual for Election Officials”.

They had prior to the notice of discontinuance, applied for accelerated hearing of the case.

It will be recalled that INEC had declared Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, as winner of the presidential election.

Tinubu defeated 17 other candidates who took part in the election.

He scored a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the PDP who polled a total of 6,984,520 votes and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.

Both PDP and LP hadsince rejected the outcome of the presidential election, just as they expressed readiness to challenge it in court a decision that some took may have prompted the suit filed by the seven states against Tinubu.

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