APM asks Supreme Court to dismiss Tinubu, Shettima’s objections to its petition

<p>The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the objections raised by President Bola Tinubu and his vice, Senator Kashim Shettima against its appeal seeking to upturn the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC)</p>, <p>The party claimed that the objections by Tinubu and Shetima are incompetent and frivolous in nature.</p>, <p>The appellant, through its lead counsel, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume (SAN), contended that the notice of preliminary objection is not only lacking in merit but also misleading in law as it only attacked some grounds of the notice of appeal, leaving out other grounds.</p>, <p>Ume specifically argued that the said notice of preliminary objection filed by the 3rd and 4th respondents, (Tinubu and Shetima) only challenged the competence of grounds 1,2,3,5,6 and 7 of the APM’s notice of appeal thereby accepting grounds 4, 8, 9 and 10 of the notice of appeal as good and competent grounds of appeal.</p>, <p>Picking holes in the notice of preliminary objection, the APM’s lead counsel referred the Apex Court to the case law in Ayorinde V Kuforiji (2022) LPELR -56600 and submitted that “the law is trite that where a respondent to an appeal intends to challenge the competence of certain grounds of appeal as contained in the notice of appeal, he shall file a motion on notice and not a notice of preliminary objection as the 3rd and 4th respondents have erroneously done”.</p>, <p>The senior lawyer submitted that the effect of filing the notice of preliminary objection in place of a motion on notice as the 3rd and 4th respondents have erroneously done in the instant appeal is that the said notice of preliminary objection is incompetent and liable to be struck out or be dismissed as was held in Eneyo & Ors V Ngere & Ors (2022) LPELR -5880 (Supreme Court) decision.</p>, <p>The appellant said another virus that made 3rd and 4th respondent’s notice of preliminary objection incompetent is that ” all the legal submissions made in support of the notice of preliminary ob