The Court of Appeal has given the Labour Party’s Peter Obi permission to serve All Progressives Congress candidate Bola Tinubu with his petition contesting the February 25 presidential election. (APC).
Obi asked the appellate court to grant him and the Labour Party permission to serve the petition on Tinubu and the Vice President-Elect, Kashim Shettima, through substituted methods. Obi is contesting Tinubu’s victory after he was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), through its counsel, Ikechukwu Ezechukwu (SAN), in an exparte application.
Due to incr
eased security around the president-elect and vice president-elect, Ezechukwu contended that Tinubu and Shettima had to be served with the court documents via “substituted means.”
The attorney requested that the court allow Obi to serve Tinubu and Shettima with court papers via the APC’s legal counsel’s office.
A three-member bench from the Court of Appeal in Abuja, chaired by Haruna Tsammani, decided the appeal and approved Obi’s plea.
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Tinubu and Shettima were to get notice of the petition “by delivering…or pasting the petition No:CA/PEPC/03/2023 and all other processes filed in the petition at either the office of the National Legal Adviser of the APC or…with any other officer of the APC at its National Headquarters,” the court said.
The bailiff of the Court of Appeal made “unsuccessful attempts to serve the petition personally on” Messrs. Tinubu and Shettima, according to Mr. Obi in the ex parte motion.
