The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is set to be declared the winner of the 2023 presidential election after polling 8,805,420 votes in the February 25th election.
A tally of the votes announced by electoral officials from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory at the national collation centre in Abuja showed Tinubu led his closest challenger, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, by no fewer than 1.8 million votes.
At the end of the collation and announcement of election results on Tuesday, Atiku polled 6,984,290 votes to place second, while the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, came third with 6,093,962 votes.
The trio won in 12 states each.
This is as the APC and its presidential candidate, Tinubu, filed a suit to restrain the Labour Party and the PDP from stopping the collation and announcement of the results of the February 25 presidential election.
In the suit instituted before the Federal High Court in Kano and marked FHC/KN/CS/43/2023, the vice presidential candidate of the APC, Kashim Shettima, was listed as the plaintiff while the Action Alliance and the Independent National Electoral Commission were also joined as defendants.
In a motion on notice filed alongside the originating summons before the federal high court, Kano, the plaintiffs asked the court to make an order restraining the defendants from stopping the collation and announcement of the results.
Listed as 1st to 4th defendants in the suit marked FHC/KN/CS/43/2023 were the Action Alliance, Labour Party, Peoples Democratic Party and the Independent National Electoral Commission, while the vice presidential candidate of the APC, Kashim Shettima, was also listed as a plaintiff.
The plaintiffs stated that “damages will not adequately compensate for the injury that may be occasioned on the Plaintiffs if the Defendants stop the collation of the result.”
In the motion on notice, the plaintiffs are seeking an “order of interim injunction restraining the 1st to 3rd defendants, their privies, agents, associates, assigns, sympathizers, supporters or any other person described from taking any step that is capable of preventing the 4th Defendant from completing the process of the conduct of the Presidential election held on 25” February 2023 which includes the collation and announcement of the result of the presidential election duly collated and announced by the State Collation Officers of the 36 State of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, pending the hearing and determination of the plaintiff/applicant’s substantive suit”.
The plaintiffs also stated that the 1st to 3rd defendants staged a walkout from the collation centre adding that “the former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has also issued a statement calling on the Defendants to stop the collation of the result”.
They further stated that the “suit raises serious issues of law which have bright chances of success” and “that the Plaintiffs undertake to pay damages to the defendants if this order ought not to have been made”.
“That this matter is one that requires urgency in order to preserve the said subject matter of this suit as the Defendant will not in any way be prejudiced by the grant of same”