The presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar; the Labour Party, Peter Obi; the Action Alliance, Solomon Okangbuan; Allied People’s Movement, Chichi Ojei, have filed petitions for the nullification of the presidential election results.
Truth Live News learnt that so far, over 100 election petitions have been filed by aggrieved candidates and their parties across the country.
Recall that INEC had on March 1 declared the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the February 25 presidential election, but the several candidates who lost in the elections filed petitions at the presidential and state election petition tribunals seeking the nullification of the poll.
Also, the paper gathered that election petition tribunals in over 12 states have equally received petitions from National Assembly candidates who are not satisfied with the results of the just concluded elections.
According to reports, the states where the petitions had been received includes Edo, Plateau, Ondo, Kwara, Ogun, Bayelsa, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, Bauchi, Lagos and Niger states.
However, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, in its Election Project Plan for the 2023 general election has budgeted over N3bn to defend the results of the February 25 presidential and national assembly election and the March 18 governorship and state assembly polls related cases.
The INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu lamented that the commission was handling over 600 cases in several courts across the federation.
Speaking at a capacity-building workshop for over 300 judges that would handle election disputes, Yakubu said that the cases pending against the electoral body relate to the conduct of primaries by political parties.
The document which was obtained on Sunday read, in part, “Litigation and prosecution: N2,104,965,000 (2022) and N3,087,195,425 (2023). Total, N5,192,160,425.’’
According the Legal drafting, the INEC election project plan also showed that the electoral umpire budgeted N886.2m for legal drafting and clearance in 2022 and 2023.
The commission allocated N337.4m for legal drafting and clearance in 2022 while N548.7m was budgeted for the same item for this year.
The number of lawyers the electoral commission would engage to handle the numerous election petition cases lodged at the tribunals is yet to be confirmed.
Reports reaching us has it that some aggrieved candidates had protested in Ogun and Nasarawa states, vowing to challenge the results of the elections in court.