The National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ajibola Basiru, has said that all the petitions challenging the election of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as president are “terribly hopeless”.

Basiru who was appointed as the new national secretary of APC on August 3, 2023 said this on Sunday, during an interview on Channels TV “Politics Today.”

When asked to comment on reports that the APC is preparing for a re-run election, Basiru said he was not supposed to remark on a situation that was still under investigation.

“But since you have asked me, from my knowledge of electoral law in Nigeria and having read the petitions and also being part of the proceedings, I would say that all the petitions against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s election are hopeless,” he said.

“Nobody needs to even waste time in dismissing same. They are hopeless petitions, terribly hopeless.”

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on March 1, announced that Tinubu of the ruling party won the presidential election ahead of 17 other candidates.

INEC declared that Tinubu scored 8,794,726 votes to defeat the two major contenders, Atiku Aubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who came second with 6,984,520 votes, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) who came third with 6,101,533 votes.

However, dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, both Atiku and Obi approached the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) to invalidate it.

The duo, in their separate petitions, claimed that they won the presidential poll and also challenged Tinubu’s eligibility to contest the election.

The petitioners are praying the court to nullify the election and order a fresh presidential election, with the exclusion of President Tinubu whom they argued was not qualified to participate.
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