BREAKING: Tribunal Calls For ‘Prayers’ As It Decides Tinubu’s Fate

The Presidential Election Petitions Court sitting, Abuja, has called on citizens to put the country in their prayers ahead of its final judgment in different petitions challenging President Bola Ahmed’s electoral victory.

The PEPC made the call after reserving its judgement in the petition filed by the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party and Atiku Abubakar against Tinubu and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The PEPC panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani said while parties and Nigerians should “pray for Nigeria”, the judgement date will be “communicated to parties” on a later date.

A member of the panel, Justice Stephen Adah commended the lawyers for cooperating and filing processes when they should.

He added that they will now study their submissions and come up with their judgement.

“The court will now at look at what is placed before us and by the grace of God, we will end well.

“We thank you all for your cooperation

“All of us in Nigerians are prayer warriors so when we go to pray, pray for Nigeria,” the judge said.

Before then, lead counsel for Abubakar, Chris Uche SAN, urged the court to be the first to nullify a presidential election in Nigeria.

He insisted that INEC’s failure to upload results of the election in real-time to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal created room for manipulation of the final outcome of the poll.

“My lord, it was a deliberate bypass in order to create room for manipulation which took place on election day,” he said, noting that the substantiality of that ‘technical glitch’ INEC claimed it experienced with the IReV portal was nationwide.

Uche also urged the court to hold that FCT is not a state as claimed by respondents, adding that Tinubu failed to score 25 percent of votes in the country’s capital.

Earlier, the lead counsel for the All Progressives Congress, Lateef Fagbemi SAN, said giving special status to FCT will give discriminatory privilege to residents in the capital over others.

He contended that none of the presiding officers presented by the petitioners disputed the scores on the polling unit results except on failed real-time transmission to IREV.

He added that “no one presented any alternative figure” to dispute the results announced by the INEC Chairman, Yakubu Mahmood.

On the US Court Judgment regarding Tinubu’s forfeiture of funds (460,000 US dollars) suspected to be proceeds of narcotics deals, Fagbemi maintained it’s a civil proceeding.

He said the 1999 constitution is a forgiven one and doesn’t breed hatred, adding It states that after 10 years, a conviction has expired.

On the issue of Tinubu’s alleged dual citizenship cited by Atiku, Lateef said even though he does not concede to it, a Nigerian citizen by birth can run for presidency even if he or she has citizenship of another country.

The court subsequently adjourned for judgment.