Atiku Heads To S/Court As Buhari Wins At Tribunal

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate Atiku Abubakar have resolved to challenge the judgment of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal which affirmed the election of President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The tribunal unanimously ruled that Atiku and PDP failed to prove allegations of irregularities against President Buhari and his party over the February 23 elections.

The five-member panel of the tribunal held that Atiku and PDP failed to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, allegations of corruption and non-compliance with the Electoral Act against Buhari and the APC.

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Atiku and PDP had alleged that security agencies and agents of the APC committed acts of violence, vote-buying, manipulation of ballot papers, stuffing of ballot boxes, massive thumb-print of ballot papers, deflation and inflation of votes, among others in states such as Borno, Yobe, Niger, Katsina, Bauchi, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Gombe and Kebbi.

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But in the lead judgment delivered by the chairman of the tribunal, Justice Mohammed Garba held that the failure of Atiku and PDP to call  among their 62 witnesses those from the 11 focal states, mainly in the North, affected by the allegations contained in paragraph 15 of their petition polling-unit-by-polling-unit as required by law, was detrimental to their case.

Garba said: “The burden of proof in sections 131 and 136 of the Evidence Act was not discharged on any of the grounds for the petition.”