Breaking: Supreme Court fixes date to hear appeal of Atiku/Obi, PDP

The Supreme Court of Nigeria has fixed date to hear the appeal of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and it’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the 2019 election.

Supreme Court scheduled to hear the appeal of the PDP, Atiku and Peter Obi, the Vice Presidential candidate for Wednesday, October 30, 2019.

PDP and it’s candidate had faulted the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that held President Muhammadu Buhari was duly elected as the President of the Republic of Nigeria in the election.

The Tribunal, in the lead judgment delivered by Justice Garba Mohammed dismissed the petitions filed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar against the election of Buhari in its entirety as they lacked merit.

Justice Mohammed held that evidence given by the 62 witnesses called by the PDP and Atiku  did not have any impact in helping the petitioners’ case, adding that the petitioners could not prove that Buhari was not duly elected.

He further added that Atiku and the PDP have no evidence of non-compliance to the electoral act by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

Justice Mohammed also held that the only way to prove cases of over-voting, electoral manipulation, among others was to tender the voters’ register, which the petitioner could not provide and that all the witnesses called by the petitioners failed to establish cases of over-voting.

He said failure by the petitioners to prove their case against Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in all grounds has led to the dismissal of the petition filed in its entirety.

The tribunal also ruled against the PDP and Atiku that Buhari possessed the West African School Certificate Examination, WASCE, to contest the 2019 election.

The tribunal said Buhari was not only qualified, but eminently qualified to contest the election, saying that the petitioners, Atiku Abubakar and PDP, could not run away from the fact that Buhari obtained WASCE that qualified him for the election.