The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, faced a significant setback on Wednesday in his effort to challenge the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) dismissed several paragraphs of Atiku’s petition that were crucial to his attempt to remove Tinubu from office.
Furthermore, the Court rejected numerous pieces of evidence, including witness statements, that Atiku had presented to support his claims of irregularities and malpractices in the February 25 presidential election.
In his ruling on objections presented by Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) on behalf of Tinubu, Justice Moses Ugoh determined that several parts of Atiku’s petition lacked a sufficient legal basis and were, therefore, deemed incompetent.
Similarly to the case of the Labour Party’s Presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, the Court noted that Atiku had failed to provide essential facts needed to support his petition.
Among the shortcomings, Atiku did not specify where ballot boxes were allegedly snatched, how the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine was manipulated, or the names of polling booths where malpractices were purported to occur.
Despite claiming to have received the majority of lawful votes, Atiku did not clearly state the total lawful votes he alleged to have garnered.
Furthermore, while he asserted that Tinubu did not secure a majority of lawful votes, he did not disclose the number of perceived lawful votes in his petition.
The court also found fault with Atiku for making serious allegations against Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello, and the Chairman of Olamaboro Local Government of Kogi State, Friday Adejoh, without including them as respondents in the petition.
This omission was deemed fatal to the petition as it denied the accused individuals the opportunity to defend themselves, as required by law.
The court dismissed allegations of over-voting across Nigeria, as the specific locations of the alleged over-voting were not specified in the petition.
Atiku’s introduction of new facts and allegations in an unconventional manner was criticized for catching the respondents off guard and being unfair.
Additionally, Atiku’s petition was faulted for introducing allegations of criminal conviction, certificate forgery, and dual citizenship of Guinea against Tinubu outside the accepted mode of filing a petition.
Justice Stephen Jonah Adah, in another ruling on objections against the petition, removed several documents presented by Atiku because they were created during the course of the petition.
Furthermore, the evidence of several key witnesses for Atiku was expunged from the Court record for not adhering to legal requirements.
The court attributed the striking out of several paragraphs of the petition to the improper construction of the petition by the PDP’s presidential candidate, which rendered them lacking in merit.
