Atiku, who came second in the election, is challenging Mr Tinubu’s at the Presidential Election Petition Court on various grounds of alleged widespread irregularities and corrupt practices during the 25 February presidential election.
Nigeria’s president-elect, Bola Tinubu, says Atiku Abubakar’s allegations of “corrupt practices” during the 25 February presidential election has no legal backing.
In a preliminary objection to Atiku’s petition, Mr Tinubu, who was the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential flagbearer in the election, argued that “no incidence of corrupt practice has been made out in the petition.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, declared Mr Tinubu, who was the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the presidential poll on 1 March.
Atiku, who came second in the election, is challenging Mr Tinubu’s victory through his petition, which he, alongside his party, filed at the Presidential Election Petition Court.
The petitioners named INEC, Mr Tinubu and the APC as respondents.
Citing widespread irregularities, corrupt practices, and non-compliance with the provision of the law during the election, the petitioners urged the election petition court to either declare Atiku Nigeria’s president or order a fresh poll.
But in the preliminary objection filed against the petition by Mr Tinubu’s lead lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), contended that Atiku and the PDP’s claim of noncompliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act was baseless..
“The petition is incompetent and unsustainable, same being completely starved of relevant supporting facts as required by the Electoral Act, 2022.”
Responding to Atiku and PDP’s claims of corrupt practices by INEC, Mr Tinubu and the APC during the presidential election, Mr Tinubu said, “the facts pleaded in support of the allegations of corrupt practices…are at variance with the said ground.”
Petition only discloses noncompliance with INEC’s ‘assurances’
In his response to INEC’s failure to upload election results in real-time from the 176,974 polling stations across Nigeria to the electoral umpire’s electronic portal, Mr Tinubu argued INEC’s “guidelines” for the conduct of the polls were not statutory.
“The facts in support of the petition… disclose no incidence of noncompliance with the Electoral Act, but only at best relate to noncompliance with ‘assurances’ which is unknown to law.”
Prior to the general elections, the electoral umpire had touted the use of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines as a game-changer that would boost the credibility of elections in the country.
It had promised to deploy the BVAS machines in uploading polling results in real-time onto the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) on the day of voting, but reneged on the “assurances,” citing “glitches” as reason for failing to upload the results on real-time.
The president-elect further noted that his victory cannot be invalidated on account of “corrupt practices.”
“The petition is liable to be struck out, as its complaint of noncompliance, when no pleading or incidence of noncompliance has been made by the petitioners in respect of any of the …polling units forming the constituency of the election.”
Background
In his petition, Atiku listed 12 alleged malpractices by INEC that helped Bola Tinubu win the polls.
Highlighting the alleged electoral infractions, Atiku accused INEC of – suppression of votes, manipulation of ballots and ballot boxes, manipulation of BVAS machines, manipulation of accreditation and collation, manipulation of election material(s) delivery.
He listed other infractions to include: manipulation of election material(s) reverse logistics, intimidation and harassment of voters, massive thumb-printing of ballot papers, destruction of electoral materials, hijack of electoral materials, mutilations, cancellations, and overwriting on result sheets as well as inflation, deflation of scores and wrong entries in result sheets.
Four other political parties are also challenging Mr Tinubu’s victory on similar grounds.
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