EXPLAINER: What you need to know about consolidation of petitions against Tinubu

TRIBUNE

On Tuesday, May 23, 2023, Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja ordered the merger of the cases filed by Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) to challenge Bola Tinubu’s victory as Nigeria’s president-elect.

In a ruling detailing a report of its pre-hearing session on Mr Obi’s petition, the court ordered a consolidation of the three pending petitions (Obi, Atiku and APM).

The panel’s chair, Mr Tsammani, citing Paragraph 50 of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act 2022, said the interest of justice would be served by a merger of the petitions.

“The justice of these petitions demands that this petition be consolidated,” Mr Tsammani said.

Legal perspective

Consolidation in this stance means to combine (two or more lawsuits or matters that involve a common question of law or fact) into one compare class…