By Kenneth Atavti
President Muhammadu Buhari has responded to allegations contained in the petition by Atiku Abubakar and his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) before the presidential election tribunal.
Buhari, in a response filed on April 16 by a team of lawyers led by Wole Olanipekun (SAN), faulted the claim by Atiku and the PDP that he lacked the requisite academic qualification to stand for election to the office of the President.
The President said he was far more qualified than Atiku and challenged Atiku to produce his academic credentials before the tribunal.
Buhari faulted the entire petition filed by the PDP and Atiku, noting that they are more about pre-election issues, which the Court of Appeal, sitting as a tribunal lacked jurisdiction.
He also argued that the petitioners told lies against themselves in the petition and made conflicting claims which the tribunal cannot grant. For instance, Buhari noted that while the petitioners claimed to have won the last presidential election and also won elections in many states in the south-south and south-eastern part of the country, they also urged the court to nullify the election and order a fresh presidential election.
Burari argued that by virtue of Section of 137 of the Electoral Act, petitioners cannot question the results of elections in states where they claim to have won and still retain themselves as petitioners.
He asked the tribunal to dismiss the petition on the grounds that the reliefs the petitioners sought by the petitioners are frivolous.
“The entire reliefs are not justifiable, as the petitioners, who claim to have scored the majority of lawful votes in substantial number of states, are also questioning their own return in those states.
“The petitioners cannot act as petitioners and respondents in the same petition.”
The Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) and its presidential candidate, former vice president Atiku Abubakar, had declared that the result from the server of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) showed that they defeated President Muhammadu Buhari in the February presidential election.
This came as they said that INEC boss Professor Mahmood Yakubu “committed grave errors in the final collation exercise” for the election by “falsely crediting” some persons with political parties, including “Okotie Christopher, Reverend Dr. Onwubuya and Ojinika Jeff Chinze.” President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar Atiku at the presidential election tribunal submitted the “unique MAC address and Microsoft product ID of the INEC server” from where the results were obtained.
Abubakar and the PDP said: “The Servers from which the said figures were derived belong to the first Respondent (INEC).
The figures and votes were transmitted to the first Respondent’s Presidential Result’s Server 1 and thereafter aggregated in INEC_PRES_RSLT_SRV2019, whose Physical Address or unique Mac Address is 94-57-A5-DC-64-B9 with Microsoft Product ID 00252-7000000000-AA535.
The above descriptions are unique to the 15t Respondent’s Server,” . “There is no conjecture in the votes and scores in the table pleaded by the Petitioners.
The figures are factual. The Spokesperson for the 2nd Respondent’s Campaign Organization openly admitted that the data in question was in the first Respondent’s Server when he wrote and submitted a petition to the Inspector General of Police and the Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) asking the Security agencies to investigate the 2nd Petitioner herein for allegedly hacking into the Server of the 1St Respondent and obtaining the data in question.
“Specifically, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN, the Spokesperson of the 2nd Respondent claimed in the said petition that it was the first Petitioner who smuggled the data into the Server.” Atiku and the PDP also alleged the INEC chairman “committed grave errors in the final collation exercise” for the election by “falsely crediting” some persons with political parties, including “Okotie Christopher, Reverend Dr. Onwubuya and Ojinika Jeff Chinze.”
“The grave errors referred to in paragraphs 4 and 5 above were under the hands and signature of the first Respondent’s Chairman, (who was also the Returning Officer) in the conduct of the final collation of the results of the Presidential Election,” they added.
“The Petitioners state that the final results as declared by the first respondent are those that were transmitted online to the website of the first Respondent (wwwinecnigeria.org).” Presidential Tribunal: PDP expresses concern over alleged non-release of electoral materials By INEC On Monday the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, cautioned INEC Chairman not to plunge the nation into a monumental crisis, by refusing to obey the Court of Appeal to release the election materials used for the conduct of the February 23, Presidential election. This is even as the party said the umpire “by this action, is blatantly standing in the way of justice and working against the will of the people in their quest to salvage the nation and reclaim their stolen mandate at the tribunal.”
