Obi, Atiku Loses Three Days To Appeal, Request For Copies Of Appeal Court Judgement

The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and flagbearer of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi have lost three days to appeal the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.

The Presidential Tribunal on Wednesday struck out the petition of Atiku and Obi seeking to remove President Bola Tinubu from office.

Following the ruling of the court, both presidential candidates have vowed to approach the Supreme Court to regain their ‘stolen mandate’.

However, Atiku and Obi have a timeframe of fourteen days to appeal the judgement of the Presidential Tribunal.

This has seen the legal team of Atiku write the Court of Appeal, expressing worries that they are yet to receive the certified true copies (CTCs) of the ruling delivered by the presidential election petitions panel on Wednesday.

In a letter signed by the head of the legal team, Chris Uche, on Friday, the team stated that the tribunal did not fulfil its promise of making available the copies of the judgements by September 7 and is worried, due to time constraints, that the delay will affect their ability to file an action before the Supreme Court to appeal the judgement.

The letter reads, “We had by our letter of 7th September 2023 requested for the copies of the judgments delivered by the Court on 6 September 2023, which the Court had promised in open court would be given to us on the next day, being 7″ 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.”

Obi and the Labour Party on their end also made similar appeals to the court, seeking immediate release of the documents given the volume of work that must be done within the short period they have to file Supreme Court briefs.