Atiku Loses at Presidential Tribunal, Heads to Supreme Court.
– Steve Ovirih
The Presidential Elections Tribunal (PET) yesterday 11th September dashed the hope of the Peoples Democratic party, PDP, Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Turaki Adamawa, as all its petitions against the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari in the February 23rd election were thrown out in its entirety for the failure of his counsels to prove their petition beyond reasonable doubt.
The five man Tribunal Judges headed by Justice Mohammed Garba in their concensus ruling ruled and resolved the five major planks of the petitioner’s reliefs against him and in favour of President Muhammadu Buhari, the respondent.
Justice Garba in his ruling averred that the petitioners failed to discharge the burden of proof required of any of the grounds of the petition concerning Paragraph 15 of their petition.
The Tribunal noted that as against the argument of the petitioner, Buhari possessed the requisite educational qualification to contest the presidential election. The petition challenging Buhari’s qualification was forthwith dismissed in its entirety .
Justice Garba said, ” it is established that a candidate is not required under the Electoral Act to attach his certificate to Form CF 001 before the candidate is adjudged to have the requisite qualification to participate in the election.”
The Judge while citing previous Supreme Court Pronouncement said the submission of educational certificate is not a requirement for contesting Elections. ” In effect , the 2nd defendant , President Buhari, had secondary education after which he proceeded to Military school. The Military school is higher in status than secondary school,” Justice Mohammed Garba averred.
In Justice Garba’s reference to the statement credited to Gen Laleye of the Nigerian Army in 2015, the tribunal noted that the General’ s denial of Buhari’s certificate with the Army’s board does not translate to Buhari not having the certificate at all, stressing that the General meant that the certificate was not in the file, noting that the Army had verified Buhari’s results at his enrollment into the force in 1961 and that fact cannot be controverted.
[9/12, 3:23 PM] Steve Ovirih: The Tribunal held that the petitioners have failed to prove that the 2nd respondent submitted false information fundamental in nature to aid his qualification to contest the Elections into the office of the president prescribed in section 35, subsection 1 of the evidence act of 2011.
On the issue of election manual as issued by INEC preparatory to the 2019 election, the Tribunal said the petitioner failed to prove INEC’ s instruction supporting electronic transmission of the 2019 election, thus where there was no server there couldn’t have been an electronically transmitted result of Elections. It noted that Petitioner’s witness 59, Mr Njorga David, a Kenyan, had solely relied on an hearsay in his “expert” bid to make a case for the use of a non existent server. Justice Garba averred in his lead ruling that card reader was not used as an instrument for transmission of results during the poll, rather it was a tool for the confirmation of the ownership of the voter cards.
The Judge ruled that none of the documents presented as bulk of evidences were able to prove charges of over voting ,non acreditation of voters or non compliance with the Electoral act.
In the reaction of the PDP contained in a statement released by the publicity secretary of the Party, Kola Ologbodiyan, the party disagreed entirely and dissociated itself from the judgement of the Tribunal, describing as an unfortunate development and a pyrrhic victory for the ruling party. Ologbodiyan said the judgement is not only provocative but a direct attract on the nation’s judicial system, maintaining that it’s a sad day for the judicial system of the country.
PDP says the Tribunal rather than rule on hard fact presented rationalisations in favour of the 2nd respondent.
The party apparatchik have said that the legal team are considering and studying the Tribunal judgement with the bid to go to the Supreme Court to challenge the obvious errors in the Presidential Elections Tribunal ruling.
