The presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 23 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, and his party on Tuesday approached the Appeal Court sitting in Abuja with an ex-parte motion to challenge the outcome of the election.
The application, which prays for an order compelling the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to allow the candidate and his party to inspect the register and other vital documents used in the conduct of the election, has INEC, President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the respondents.
In the ex-parte motion dated March 4 and filed March 5, Atiku and the PDP prayed the apellate court serving as the presidential election petition tribunal to compel the electoral body to allow their agents to scan and make photocopies of vital documents used in the last presidential election for the purpose of maintaining their petition against the election.
The ex-parte application filed by Chris Uche (SAN) specifically said the order requested against INEC was for the purpose of “filing and maintaining election petition” before the tribunal.
The ex-parte motion sighted by BusinessDay is supported with a 12-paragraph affidavit deposed to by one Colonel Austin Akobundu (retd.), director of contact and mobilisation, Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Council.
Atiku has cried foul since the electoral umpire declared Buhari winner of the election, alleging the election was massively rigged against him and vowing to challenge the outcome and process of the election in court.
The PDP on Tuesday also protested the outcome of the February 23 presidential election in Abuja.
Led by Uche Secondus, its national chairman, the PDP members marched from their presidential campaign office in Maitama, Abuja, to INEC headquarters.
The members in their hundreds, who carried placards with various inscriptions, demanded the release of the original election results from the last presidential election.
Secondus maintained that the exercise was characterised by irregularities, including militarisation of the process, manipulation of figures and disruption of the election in PDP strongholds.
He condemned what he called harassment of PDP members by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to frustrate them from challenging the election outcome at the tribunal.
Presenting a petition to May Agbamuche-Mbu, INEC national commissioner, legal services, titled ‘Cases of infractions and deliberate violations of the electoral law and guidelines’ and addressed to Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, Secondus kicked against “deliberate non-deployment of the electronic collation system (e-collation) for the elections results” from polling units to the National Collation Centre.
As at the time of the protest, members of the diplomatic community, including Stuart Symington, US Ambassador to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, British High Commissioner to Nigeria, among others, were driving out of INEC’s headquarters where they paid a courtesy call on the electoral body.
Responding, Agbamuche-Mbu assured that the forthcoming state elections would be free, fair and credible.
Meanwhile Festus Keyamo, director of strategic communications and official spokesperson, All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, said the council is very anxious to meet Atiku in court in order to show the world in a conclusive manner the free and fair nature of the PDP candidate’s comprehensive defeat at the polls.
Keyamo debunked the claims that the APC Presidential Campaign Council had written to some international bodies to prevail on Atiku not to proceed to court to challenge the result of the presidential election. “Our attention has been drawn to some news item and posts on social media reporting that we wrote a letter to some international bodies to prevail on Alhaji Atiku Abubakar not to proceed to court to challenge the result of the 2019 presidential election,” Keyamo said in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday.
“Our investigation reveals that a letter to that effect was purportedly written by a certain ‘Buhari Campaign Organisation’. This is the second time we will be informing the public that the said ‘Buhari Campaign Organisation’ does not act at the behest of the APC Presidential Campaign Council nor does it represent the Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation in any way. As a result, whatever it has released does not represent the position of the APC Presidential Campaign Council or President Muhammadu Buhari,” he said.
Keyamo said the official position of the council was that Atiku has a constitutional right to seek redress in court and so the council does not seek in any way to curtail that right.
“In fact, it is the resort to court that is the only democratic way to ventilate his perceived grievance and any attempt to restrict or discourage the exercise of such right would be an invitation to anarchy. In addition, we are very anxious to meet Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in court in order to show the world in a conclusive manner the free and fair nature of the comprehensive defeat of Atiku at the polls. An election is not termed ‘rigged’ only by the mere claim of it by the loser,” Keyamo said.
“That is what Atiku and the PDP want to ram down our throats. Unfortunately for them, international, continental and sub-regional observers (who can be seen as neutral by all standards) ALL declared it to be free, fair and credible. No ego-massaging narrative can change that. We therefore totally disassociate ourselves from the letter purportedly written by one of, perhaps, many support groups of President Muhammadu Buhari. They may have a right to their opinion, but it does not represent our official position,” he said.
FELIX OMOHOMHION, OWEDE AGBAJILEKE & JAMES KWEN, Abuja
