Lead counsel to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Chris Uche, has asked the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal to urgently release the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgement delivered on Wednesday.
Recall that the tribunal had struck out the various petitions filed by Abubakar, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s victory at the polls.
In a unanimous decision, the five-man panel led by Haruna Tsammani held that Abubakar was unable to prove claims of vote rigging and irregularities against Tinubu.
The PDP and Atiku rejected the tribunal judgment and vowed to appeal against the verdict.
Information Nigeria reports that as stipulated by law, Abubakar has 14 days from judgement date to file an appeal at the supreme court.
In a September 7 letter addressed to the tribunal, Uche said Abubakar’s legal team has yet to receive copies of the judgement, two days after the ruling.
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According to Uche, the legal team applied for copies of the judgments on Thursday but received no response.
“We had by our letter of 7th September 2023 requested for the copies of the judgements delivered by the Court on 6th September 2023, which the Court had promised in open court would be given to us on the next day, being 7th September 2023.
“Our clients are worried that up till today, we have not received copies of the judgments which were read as ready and televised globally on 6th September 2023.
“As we indicated, given the severely limited time to file our appeal, our request is one of extreme urgency, as any day that goes by, depletes our time, and affects our constitutional right of appeal, as the time to appeal is not extendable.
“We have already lost two days out of the only 14 days available to us,” Uche disclosed.
Uche however asked the tribunal to release the copies of the judgments before noon today to enable the legal team to file an appeal, noting that the weekend is counted in the computation of the time to the suit.
