By Deborah Onyofufeke
The Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, on Monday, said it will give its ruling on where it stands on Tuesday, whether or not it would consolidate the three political parties challenging the declaration of the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Recall that the PEPC had disclosed its intention to consolidate all three remaining petitions in a previous sitting on Saturday.
The three petitions are those filed by the LP and its presidential candidate, Mr Peter Gregory Obi, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and it presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).
The Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel of the court said it was empowered by Paragraph 50 of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act, to merge all the petitions and determine them together.
It, therefore, gave counsel for all the petitioners the permission to consult their clients and report back to it with the outcome of the meeting Monday.
At the resumed hearing today, APC and Tinubu, however, opposed the move to consolidate the three different petitions.
The president-elect through his team of lawyers led by Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, argued that merging all the petitions would adversely affect his ability to effectively defend all the issues that were raised against him by the petitioners.
Olujinmi held that the petitioners did not only raise various issues against the president-elect but are seeking different reliefs.
Olujinmi urged the court not to go ahead with the consolidation. He told the court that given the stage they are in, it will be difficult for them to consent to consolidation of the petitions.
APC counsel, Mr Charles Edosomwam, SAN, argued that consolidating the petitions would be against the interest of Justice.
He added that the grounds of the petitioners are different and the wide range of issues raised by parties are also different adding that it will cause the trial to become unwind if consolidated.
He also said that it will make major issues before the court lost like a pin in a haystack making it pragmatically impossible for the respondents to effectively defend the case.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on its part, said although it was not opposed to the proposed consolidation of the petition, it would leave the issue to the court’s discretion.
