The Presidential Election Petitions Court will today, begin hearing of the petitions challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s president-elect.
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, declared Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the president-elect on March 1.
Tinubu polled 8.8 million votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who scored 6.9 million, Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, who amassed 6.1 million and 15 others.
Atiku and Obi have since filed separate petitions seeking orders to annul the election or declare them as winners of the polls.
Former military head of state, Yakubu Gowon, has urgeds aggrieved candidates in the 2023 general election to accept the outcome of the election petition tribunals and the Supreme Court.
Gowon made this plea last Thursday, while speaking at the 15th edition of Punuka annual lecture 2023 in honour of a late supreme court justice, Chukwunweike Idigbe, in Abuja.
According to him, the judiciary plays a very important role in nation-building and should be allowed to do their work.
“We need to allow the apex court, their deliberations, come up with their decisions and as the public to be humble enough to accept their decision as final in order to maintain the sanctity of the judiciary as individuals and institutions.
“The litigation tribunals that are now going, let us give the judiciary the opportunity to do their work and let us accept their decisions as it is,” Gowon said.