Tribunal strikes out APM petition for lack of merit

The Presidential Election Petition Court, sitting in Abuja, on Wednesday, struck out the petition of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) questioning the validity of the nomination of Senator Kassim Shettima as vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), for lack of merit and abuse of the Court process.

The court after considering the grounds of the petition which dwell on the alleged invalid nomination of Senator Kassim Shettima as the vice president said PEPC lacks the jurisdiction to consider the matter as it was a pre-election matter which the petitioner ought to have ventilated at the Federal High court.

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The court went further to say the process of qualification of any candidate for an election is stipulated in the constitution, particularly in section 131(1) and therefore said the petition before it by the APM is incompetent.

All other reliefs sought by the petitioner were dismissed. Considering the evidence placed before the court, the leader of the panel of five justices held that the entire grounds centred on the issue of alleged invalid nomination of the sen. Kassim Shettima and after considering all the paragraphs of the petition and the reply by the respondents, what appeared is that being a serving senator of Borno central senatorial district his nomination then as vice president amounted to a double nomination.

But, qualification or non-qualification of a candidate is clearly stated in the constitution and this has been decided upon severally by the Supreme Court. There is no other law that can contradict the Constitution.

The petitioner from the oral and documentary evidence failed to establish any concrete reasons why the court should grant his prayers.

On the allegation of APC not conducting any primary election to nominate the vice president, the petitioner erred as it is within the constitutional power of the president to nominate his running mate and the position of the petitioner is therefore discountenanced.

Having resolved all the issues against the petitioner, the petition is devoid of any merit.

• NTA News