Alhaji Abubakar
The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, challenging the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in the February 23, 2019 presidential election.
The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, who led six other members of the court’s panel on Wednesday delivered a three-sentence judgement which he said would be clarified later.
Alhaji Abubakar and the PDP filed the appeal at the Supreme Court after the presidential election tribunal last month dismissed their original petition.
The tribunal ruled against the PDP on the core issues it raised about the February presidential election.
In the argument by his counsel, Mr Abubakar and the PDP had argued that Mr Buhari lied on oath about his educational qualification and that the high school the president said he attended did not exist at the dates stated by the president. They also argued that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, manipulated the result of the election in favour of Buhari whereas the result on an the Commission’s server showed that Mr Atiku Abubakar won the election with a higher margin.
The tribunal disagreed with the PDP and Mr Abubakar on the issues raised.
In his judgement delivery, who said the reasons for the decision of the court would be made known on a date to be announced, disclosed that he and members of the panel had read all the documents and exhibits filed in the case for two weeks and found the appeal to be lacking in merit.
The judgement which was unanimously consented to by the other six members of the panel came less than an hour after the court took arguments on the appeal.
