The allies of the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has revealed that it would be indiscreet for him to respond to the petitions filed at the election tribunal by the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi and his counterpart in Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, when he is yet to be served a notice.
This is coming five days after Peter Obi filed petition with the elections tribunal to protest the outcome of the February 25 poll.
According to the Legal Director of Tinubu Presidential Campaign Council, Babatunde Ogala, Tinubu was not served with the notice of hearing before he left the country for vacation in France last week.
The leading opposition, PDP and LP candidates had both accused Tinubu of deliberately traveling outside the country avoiding being served their petitions and told the tribunal that several attempts made to serve the petitions on the APC candidate has proved abortive.
In a phone chat with The Punch correspondent, the Chief Spokesman of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Yunusa Tanko, expressed disappointment over the recent vacation trip which people termed was Tinubu’s idea of evading being served the papers.
He said,
“They deliberately frustrated the process. That man (Tinubu) practically ran out of the country after evading being served the notice. But our party will serve him the notice through the APC. I am sure they must have received it by now.”
She was asked the date that Tinubu’s legal team hopes to respond to Obi and Atiku’s petitions, he said,
“How can we fix a date for that? We will file our response before the time lapses,”.
While answering question bordering on Tinubu leaving the country inorder to prevent being served court notice l, he said,
“That is false. In fact, as of this morning, Tinubu has not been served a copy of the petition. They only obtained an order for substituted service on Friday. So they have to serve him. The earliest they can serve is Monday and he has 21 days from there.
“So when you have not served somebody, you cannot expect him to respond. Until we are served the petition copy, that’s when our time will start counting”.