BREAKING PEPT Strikes Out APM Petition Against Shettima For Double Nomination

The presidential election petition Court has struck out the petition of the Allied Peoples Movement for lack of merit and abuse of the Court process.

The court after considering the grounds of the petition which dwelled on the alleged invalid nomination of Senator Kasim Shettima as the vice president.

The tribunal said it lacks the jurisdiction to consider the matter as it was a pre-election matter which the petitioner ought to have ventilated at the Federal High court.

The court went further to say that the process of qualification of any candidate for an election is stipulated in the constitution, particularly in section 131(1) and therefore said the petition before it by the APM is incompetent.

All other reliefs sought by the petitioner were dismissed.

Considering the evidence placed before the court, the leader of the panel of five justices held that the entire grounds centred on the issue of alleged invalid nomination of the Kasim Shettima and after considering all the paragraphs of the petition and the reply by the respondents, what appeared is that being a serving senator of Borno central senatorial district his nomination then as vice president amounted to a double nomination.

Qualification or non-qualification of a candidate is clearly stated in the constitution and this has been decided upon several times by the Supreme Court.

There is no other law that can contradict the Constitution.

The petitioner from the oral and documentary evidence failed to establish any concrete reasons why the court should grant his prayers.

On the allegation of ApC not conducting any primary election to nominate the Vice president, the petitioner erred as It is within the constitutional power of the president to nominate his running mate and the position of the petitioner is therefore discounted..

Having resolved all the issues against the petitioner, the petition is devoid of any merit.