Atiku, PDP plot Buhari downfall

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the 2019 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, is making new legal moves to ensure that the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress in the last presidential election is reversed.

Recall that the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal had on June 24 rejected the request of Atiku and his party to allow them access to a server purportedly used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transmit Nigeria’s 2019 presidential election results.

In the latest appeal at the Supreme Court, Atiku is insisting that he defeated President Muhammadu Buhari at the polls, going by the results allegedly got from the said central server allegedly owned and deployed for the elections by INEC.

Atiku and the PDP, in the notice of appeal, are contesting the tribunal’s ruling on four grounds.

First: They argued that the PEPT was in error when “contrary to the provisions of Section 151 (l) of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) they refused to grant the application of the Appellants on the ground that it will amount to pre-judging the issue in the substantive case.”

Second: They argued that the tribunal was in error when it failed to exercise its discretion in their favour despite sufficient materials placed before it.

Third: They faulted the tribunal for allegedly denying them “fair hearing in gross violation of Section 36(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), by declining to grant the application of the appellants for access to information in the 1st respondent’s custody thereby undermining the maintenance of the petition” in the third ground.

Fourth: They argued that the tribunal’s justices “erred in law when they failed to consider the uncontroverted evidence of the appellants contained in their further affidavit in support of their application for access and inspection of information in the custody of the 1st respondent.”