It is too late for the Peoples Democractic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to query the qualification of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has submitted.

The ruling party noted that issues relating to Tinubu’s qualifications had been settled by the courts.

It insisted that the PDP and Atiku ought to have raised them before the election.

The party stated that Tinubu was eminently qualified to contest the election.

“The third respondent (APC) denies Paragraph 146 of the petition and avers further that the second respondent (Tinubu) was eminently qualified to contest the presidential election and met the constitutional threshold,” it said.

The APC stated these in its preliminary objection along with its response to the election petition by the PDP and Atiku before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).

The processes were filed at the PEPC secretariat on Tuesday night by Thomas Ojo, a member of the party’s legal team led by Lateef Fagbemi (SAN).

The APC faulted the petitioners’ claim of corrupt practices during the election.

It stated: “The election won by the second respondent was valid, free and fair and it is not invalid by reason of corrupt practices or any other electoral infraction.”

Contrary to the petitioners’ claim, the APC said the results were not manipulated.

It said the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as Tinubu’s scores were not allocated to him, but represented the lawful and valid votes cast for him.

The ruling party added that no vote cast for the petitioners was deducted from Atiku’s results in order to return Tinubu as the winner.

It argued that the President-elect actually won the majority of lawful votes cast and was lawfully and constitutionally returned as the winner.

On the petitioners’ claim that INEC failed to electronically transmit the results, the APC stated that the election was conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and other extant laws.

It added that there was no issue that was substantial enough to affect the result, insisting that Tinubu’s declaration as the winner was proper and valid.

On Tinubu’s qualification, the party stated: “The first respondent (INEC) pasted in the relevant constituency, particulars of the second respondent (Tinubu) for the notice of the general public, long before the holding of the election under reference.

“It was to enable action to be taken by any member of the public (including the petitioners) to challenge the second respondent’s claim and qualification.

“Indeed, cases were instituted challenging the qualification of the second respondent, which include the cases in suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/942/202, Appeal No: CA/ABJ/CV/06/2023 – between the Rights for All International vs. APC & five others; suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/954/2022 between Action Alliance vs INEC & three others; appeal No: CA/ABJ/CV/1475/2022 between Action Alliance vs. INEC & two others; suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1960/2022 between Incorporated Trustees of Kingdom Human Rights Foundation International vs. INEC & two others.

“All these cases have been concluded with finality by the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal.

“There is another suit predicated on the purported forfeiture order pending before the Federal High Court in suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/206 between PDP vs. Code of Conduct Bureau & six others, filed before the instant petition.

“The petitioners failed and/or neglected to challenge the validity of the second respondent’s claim regarding his educational qualification, as the ground stated in the said petition has no particulars or specific infractions constituting non-qualification.”

The APC also argued that the manner in which the PDP and Atiku raised the issue did not confer jurisdiction on the PEPC to entertain it.

The party noted that the petitioners’ claim that Tinubu was not qualified to contest the election “lacks necessary facts or particulars as required by Paragraph 4(1)(d) of the Rules of procedure for election petition (First Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2022)”.

It said: “The petitioners’ paragraph 146 in support of Ground Four (of the petition) on non-qualification is vague, bare and meaningless as having the constitutional threshold is not part of the requirement to contest an election.”

The APC argued that the reliefs being claimed by the petitioners are incompetent, not grantable, and unmeritorious and should be refused with substantial cost.

The party stated: “The petition is incompetent, constitutes an abuse of the process of this honourable court and it does not disclose any cause of action or reasonable cause of action against the respondents and is liable to be dismissed or struck out.”

“The said petition offends mandatory rules of competent pleading in election petitions and are liable to be struck out, for the respective reasons that they are generic, vague, speculative, anticipatory, futuristic, non-specific, nebulous, bogus, imprecise, and at large contrary to the mandatory provisions of paragraph 4(1) (d) of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2022 (as amended).

“Allegations of non-compliance must be made distinctly and proved on a polling unit basis.

“In the entire petition and/or the itemised paragraphs, the petitioners did not provide the particulars of polling unit(s) where any irregularity or non-compliance took place.

“The failure of the petitioners to plead, with specificity, the particulars in terms of names, codes and/or polling units where the alleged malpractices, non-compliance, irregularities, took place is a fundamental violation of paragraph 4(1)(d) of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act, 2022, which fact renders the petition incompetent and an abuse of court process.

“The petition as presently constituted is devoid of necessary particulars/information to support the allegation of corrupt practices, violence and non – compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act.”

The APC noted that the petitioners raised “serious criminal allegations of corruption, manipulation, violence, intimidation, propaganda and forceful ejection against unnamed thugs, Hon. Friday Adejoh and Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, without them being joined to the petition,” an error, it argued, that was sufficient for the court to strike out the petition.

On ground one, in which the petitioners claimed non-compliance with the Electoral Act, the APC argued that Tinubu was duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast.

The APC argued that Tinubu needed not to score 25 per cent in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to be declared the winner.

It added: “The second respondent was duly elected by a majority of the lawful votes cast at the presidential election held on 25th February 2023.

“He scored the highest number of votes as well as one-quarter of lawful votes at the election in each of at least two–thirds of all the states in the federation.

“A candidate who scored the majority of the votes cast at a presidential election and secured one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in at least two-thirds of all the states in the federation, need not obtain 25 per cent of the votes cast in the FCT to be entitled to be declared winner of the election.

“The inclusion or addition of the FCT, Abuja by the provision of the Constitution did not attach special or unique condition or recognition to the FCT, but to give FCT parallel recognition with other states of the federation.” (The Nation)