Tribunal Throws APM’s Petition Into Thrash Can
By PHC Telegraph
Vice President Kassim Shettima (dressed in white) listening intently to the ruling of the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja, the federal capital.
The Presidential Election Petition Court has thrown out the petition filed before it by the Allied Peoples Movement, APM.
The court while ruled on the matter today, Wednesday 6th September, 2023, described the APM’s bid as an abuse of court process and threw it out for lacking merit.
After examining the grounds of the petition which dwelt largely on the claim that the nomination of Senator Kassim Shettima as the vice president is invalid, the court said it lacked the jurisdiction to consider the matter.
It noted that the matter before it was primarily a pre-election matter which the petitioner ought to have ventilated at the Federal High court.
Relying on section 131(1) of the Nigerian Constitution, the Presidential Election Petition Court ruled that the qualification or non-qualification of a candidate has been clearly articulated in the said constitution.
It equally acknowledged that there have been several decisions on the issue by the Supreme Court.
Declaring the matter incompetent and a waste of the time of the court, the PEPC held that nothing can be added to, or subtracted from the Constitution.
On the issue that the APC did not conduct primaries to elect Kassim Shettima as the Vice Presidential Candidate, the court noted that the selection of a vice president lies within the prerogative of a presidential candidate.
All other reliefs sought by the petitioner were similarly dismissed.