The All Progressives Congress and its presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on Tuesday, commenced a legal battle to prevent moves by opposition parties to halt the ongoing collation of Saturday’s presidential election results.
The candidate and his party filed a suit to restrain the Labour Party and the People’s Democratic Party preventing the continuous announcement and collation of results of the poll.
The suit was marked FHC/KN/CS/43/2023 and filed before the Federal High Court in Kano.
The Action Alliance and the Independent National Electoral Commission were joined as defendants while the APC vice presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, was also listed as a plaintiff.
The plaintiffs in a motion on notice filed alongside the originating summons asked the court to make the order restraining the defendants from stopping the collation and announcement of the results.
They argued that “damages will not adequately compensate for the injury that may be occasioned on the Plaintiffs if by the Defendants stop the collation of the result.”
Meanwhile, former President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday evening led a delegation of the Election Monitoring Team of the Economic Community of West African States to visit the residence of Tinubu, in Abuja.
Jonathan was accompanied by the former President of Ghana, John Mahama; ex-Governor Kayode Fayemi and others.
The team was said to have appealed for calm and advised that the electoral umpire should also make spirited attempts to address some concerns that have so far been raised by all stakeholders.
The visit of the ECOWAS team is coming in the wake of calls by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the major opposition parties for the Independent National Electoral Commission to cancel the results of Saturday’s elections.
The calls had angered the ruling party which scolded Obasanjo for not acting like an elder statesman with his inciting statement.
This is even as the Chief Spokesman of the APC presidential campaign council, Festus Keyamo, knocked critics calling for the resignation of the INEC chairman.
The ECOWAS visit to Tinubu was said to have come after the same delegation earlier met with the Labour Party flag bearer, Peter Obi; his counterpart in New Nigeria People’s Party, Rabiu Kwankwaso and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.
Also, the APC has won the February 25 presidential election in Rivers State after polling a total of 231,591 from the 23 local government areas of the state.
This came after collated results from the two remaining local government areas, including Governor Nyesom Wike’s Obio/Akpor and Degema, were presented to the state Collation Officer, Charles Adias, on Tuesday evening.
The APC won 14 LGAs, the Labour Party, five, while the PDP won four.
Adias, who is also the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State, had received the collated results from 21 of the 23 LGAs of the state at the end of proceedings on Monday.
Receiving the collated results, Adias said, “We have received the collated results from all the 23 local government areas. I will now give a summary of the results.
“From the final collated results, the APC polled 231,591, while the Labour Party scored 175,071 and the People’s Democratic Party, 88,468 to come second and third respectively.
“The local governments won by the APC are: Obio, Akpor, Oyigbo, Eleme, Tai, Gokana, Khana, Ikwerre, Emuoha, Abua/Odual, Ahoada East, Akuku-Toru, Asari-Toru, Omuma, Opobo/Nkoro.
“On its part, the Labour Party won in Ogba-Egbema-Ndoni, Etche, Bonny, Port Harcourt City and Ahoada West, while the PDP won in Degema, Ogu/Bolo, Andoni and Okrika LGAs.”
Adias, while giving the summary of the collated results said, “I am pleased to inform you that we have come to the end of this exercise in Rivers State. It is my honour that I present to you by announcing the results as collated.”
He said the total of registered voters stood at 3,315,005, while the number of accredited voters stood as 605,055.
