Nigeria's ruling party seeks dismissal of Obi's election challenge

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's ruling party has asked the Appeals Court to dismiss a petition by third-placed candidate Peter Obi who is challenging the victory of president-elect Bola Tinubu following a disputed election in February, court documents showed on Tuesday.

Labour Party's Peter Obi, who came third in the election, and second-placed opposition People's Democratic Party's (PDP) Atiku Abubakar last month separately challenged the results in court.

The two candidates said the results were fraudulent, citing Tinubu, his ruling All Progressives Congress Party (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as respondents.

The APC said in a countersuit on Tuesday that Obi's petition should be dismissed on several grounds, including that Obi was not a Labour Party member when he contested the elections and that he failed to include Atiku as a respondent, making his petition "incompetent."

Obi, who was Atiku's running mate in 2019, left the PDP in May last year to join the Labour Party. The APC is arguing that Obi was not yet a member when Labour Party submitted its members register to the electoral commission as required by law.

The ruling party is yet to respond to Atiku's petition.

INEC declared Tinubu winner with 37% of the votes cast, ahead of Atiku's 29% and 25% for Obi. No court has overturned presidential election results in Nigeria before.

Tinubu is set to be sworn-in end of May.

The Appeals Court is still to nominate judges who will constitute a tribunal to hear the presidential election petitions and deliver a verdict within 180 days from the date the court challenges were filed last month.

(Reporting by Camillus Eboh, writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe, editing by Christina Fincher)