Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded February 23 election, Atiku Abubakar, and his party are upbeat the election petition they filed on Monday at the tribunal against the victory of President Muhammadu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is strong enough to upturn the results of the elections in their favour.
A source close to the former Vice President told BusinessDay on Wednesday on condition of anonymity that Atiku and the PDP “have overwhelming evidence against the unprecedented rigging perpetrated by the President Buhari, and his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The details will shock Nigerians as time goes on’’.
Atiku and PDP in the petition claimed that the INEC computer server shows that he won the February 23 polls with about 1.6 million votes to defeat incumbent Buhari. In the petition the former Vice President is also relying on 50 sets of documents, filed before the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal in Abuja against INEC, Presidebt Buhari and the APC respectively.
INEC had on February 27, declared that President Buhari won the election with 15,191,847 votes to defeat Atiku, who it said polled 11,262,978 votes, but Atiku and his party cried foul insisting that the elections were massively rigged.
Atiku and the PDP stated in their 139-page petition that “from the data in the 1st respondent’s (INEC’s) server…the true, actual and correct results” from “state to state computation” showed that Abubakar Atiku polled a total of 18,356,732 votes to defeat President Buhari whom they said scored 16,741,430 votes.
The petition said further that the results were the total votes scored by the candidates in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, as there was “no report on server” about the results from Rivers State as of February 25. By this, Abubakar Atiku claims to have defeated President Buhari with 1,615,302 votes.
Atiku also in the petition resuscitated the allegation that President Buhari was not qualified to contest the election on the grounds that he did not possess the constitutional minimum qualification of a school certificate.
The five grounds of the petition read, “The 2nd respondent (Buhari) was not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast at the election.
“The election of the 2nd respondent is invalid by reason of corrupt practices.
“The election of the 2nd Respondent is invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended).
“The 2nd respondent was at the time of the election not qualified to contest the said election.
“The 2nd respondent submitted to the 1st Respondent an affidavit containing false information of a fundamental nature in aid of his qualification for the said election.”
By Innocent Odoh, Abuja
