The Court of Appeal has granted Peter Obi’s request to serve his petition challenging the February 25, 2023, Presidential election.
The request was granted on Friday in Abuja and comes after Obi and the Labour Party filed a complaint before the court as co-petitioners on March 20.
Ikechukwu Ezechukwu (SAN), in an ex-parte application, asked the appellate court to grant the presidential candidate and the party leave to serve the petition on the President-elect, Bola Tinubu and the Vice President-elect, Kashim Shettima, through substituted means.
The lawyer stated that the request became necessary owing to heightened security protection around the president-elect and vice president-elect.
Ezechukwu asked the court to allow Obi to serve the documents on Tinubu, and Shettima through the office of the legal adviser of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Speaking in the ex-parte application, Obi disclosed that Tinubu’s relocation to the Defence Guest House at the Maitama area of Abuja after he was declared the election winner has made it difficult to have access to him.
According to him, the purpose of the service of the documents is “to bring the pendency of any proceeding to the knowledge of the party on whom the process is meant to be served personally”.
The request was granted by a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, led by Haruna Tsammani.
Obi via the petition is asking the court to declare him the nation’s president or order a fresh poll, in which Tinubu would be excluded.
