The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate in the Feb. 23 election, Atiku Abubakar, have formally filed their 66 grounds of appeal against the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal at the Supreme Court.
Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, a senior lawyer in the legal team of Atiku and PDP, disclosed that the appeal was predicated on 66 grounds, which they believed Justices of the tribunal erred in their verdict on Atiku and PDP’s petition against the election of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The five-member panel led by Justice Mohammed Garba had in its judgment delivered on Sept. 11, dismissed the petition filed by Atiku and PDP for being incompetent and lacking in merit.
The panel in dismissing the petition held that Atiku and PDP were unable to substantiate their allegations that the election was rigged in favour of Buhari and the APC.
They further held that the petitioners did not produce relevant witnesses to convince them that Buhari did not possess necessary educational qualification for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Alhough Ozekhome did not list any of the 66 grounds on which the appeal was predicated.
The appeal is centered on issues bordering around the qualification of Buhari in the election and the controversial Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC’s) server amongst others.
Among the grounds listed included claims that the judgement of the tribunal was not based on the issues canvassed by the petitioners, especially in relation to the respondent’s academic qualifications.
The appellants are there praying the apex court to hold that the tribunal erred in its decision and consequently set the tribunal’s judgment aside and go ahead to grant all the reliefs sought.
Atiku and his party, PDP had dragged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before the tribunal for declaring Buhari as winner of the Feb. 23 presidential election.
Mentioned as respondents are the electoral umpire include President Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In the petition filed on March 18, the petitioners amongst other things alleged that INEC in connivance with agencies of the ruling government manipulated the outcome of the poll in favour of Buhari.
They further alleged that Buhari at the time of contesting the poll was not qualified having not possessed requisite academic qualification and as such all votes credited to him in the election be regarded as wasted votes.
They therefore prayed the tribunal to declare them winner of the February 23 presidential election.
But the tribunal in its judgment on September 11, 2019 dismissed the petition for being incompetent and lacking in merit.
The tribunal resolved all issues raised by the petitioners in favour of Buhari, adding that the president did not lie but indeed possessed the mandatory qualification and even much more to contest for the presidential election.
Dissatisfied, the petitioners had approached the apex court to reverse the judgment of the tribunal. (NAN)
