>
Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Supreme Court has fixed Thursday, October 26, to deliver judgement on the two appeals that are seeking to nullify the election of President Bola Tinubu.
The appeals were filed by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi.
It was gathered that the apex court communicated the judgement date to all the parties on Wednesday, through a notice signed by one of its registrars.
The development is coming barely 72 hours after a seven-member panel of the court heard the appeals and reserved its verdict after parties in the matter adopted their final briefs of argument.
Atiku and Obi are challenging the declaration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate was the valid winner of the February 25 presidential election.
They are praying the apex court set aside the September 6 judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), which dismissed their allegation that the election was rigged in favour of the ruling party.
Aside from challenging Tinubu’s eligibility to participate in the contest, both Atiku, who came second, and Obi who came third, maintained that the president did not secure the majority of valid votes cast during the election to be declared the winner.
Atiku is also seeking the nullification of Tinubu’s electoral victory for allegedly presenting forged academic certificate to INEC to contest the presidential election.