By A Federal High Court in Abuja has refused to disqualify the candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi, from partaking in the 2023 presidential election.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had approached the court, blaming both Obi and Tinubu for acting in breach of the Electoral Act by failing to nominate running mates in time and picking Kabiru Masari and Doyin Okupe as their placeholders.
Justice Donatus Okorowo, on Monday, held that the application needed merit and was an abuse of court process as the court needed jurisdiction to entertain the matter.
PDP had fought that APC and LP were in breach of Segment 142 of the Nigerian Constitution, which gives that a person cannot be validly elected as president except if he nominates another candidate as his associate from the same political party.
The APC had in June nominated Masari as its temporary running mate, while LP selected Okupe in a similar spot ahead of INEC’s deadline of June 17 for the submission of lists of candidates.
The two names were eventually supplanted with Kashim Shettima and Ahmed Datti Baba-Ahmed selected as the running mates separately ahead of the window for substitutions.
