Posted by By Camillus Eboh on
A Nigerian electoral tribunal on Monday delayed by two weeks a hearing on an opposition challenge to President Umaru Yar'Adua's landslide election victory.
ABUJA, July 30 (Reuters) - A Nigerian electoral tribunal on Monday delayed by two weeks a hearing on an opposition challenge to President Umaru Yar'Adua's landslide election victory.
Independent observers reported widespread vote-rigging and European Union monitors said the April polls were "not credible" and fell "far below basic international standards".
The Court of Appeal, which also serves as the presidential election tribunal, was due to hear the preliminary arguments on Monday. But tribunal chairman Justice James Ogebe delayed the hearing to Aug. 13 because he said the plaintiff, Muhammadu Buhari, had served the court papers on the wrong person.
Buhari, the candidate of the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP), served the papers on the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) instead of on the president himself. The chairman told Buhari to serve them on Yar'Adua's counsel.
Buhari's petition and another one by the candidate of a second opposition party, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, have been bogged down by legal technicalities since they were filed at the tribunal in May.
The April vote was billed as historic because it was the first time one elected president handed over to another in Africa's most populous country and top oil producer.
But the polls were so badly rigged the main domestic monitoring group called them a "charade". Yar'Adua has acknowledged the polls were flawed and has promised reforms to conduct a free, fair and credible vote in 2011.
Official results gave Yar'Adua 24.6 million votes compared to 6.6 million for Buhari and 2.6 million for Abubakar, who was the candidate of the Action Congress party.
The tribunal also adjourned to Aug. 20 the hearing of a petition brought by the ANPP, which is seeking to consolidate its case against Yar'Adua with Buhari's petition.
Buhari parted ways with the ANPP in June after the party agreed to join Yar'Adua's government. The former military strongman has accused the party leadership of betraying him by joining the government when he was still in court challenging the outcome of the elections.
Abubakar's party was also invited to join the cabinet but it declined, saying it did not recognise Yar'Adua as the legitimate president.