Details of the petition filed on Monday by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate in the February 23 election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to challenge the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC), have been revealed.
The petition, which sought to rely on 50 sets of documents, was filed before the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal in Abuja against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Buhari and the APC as the first to the third respondents, respectively.
Atiku, in the 139-page petition stated 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 he polled a total of 18,356,732 votes to defeat Buhari whom they said scored 16,741,430 votes.
He insisted that the results were the total votes scored in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, as there was “no report on sever” about the results from Rivers State as of February 25, 2019 and argued Buhari was not qualified to run for the office of the President because he does not possess the educational qualification to contest the election to the office of the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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.”
They sought among their five main prayers, that the tribunal should determine that Buhari “was not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast in the said election” and therefore his declaration and return by INEC “as the President of Nigeria is unlawful, undue, null, void and of no effect”.
They also prayed that Atiku having been “duly and validly elected” ought to be “returned as President of Nigeria, having polled the highest number of lawful votes cast at the election to the office of the President of Nigeria held on February 23, 2019 and having satisfied the constitutional requirements for the said election.
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