Atiku challenges Tinubu’s victory in court, raises five grounds

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has asked the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja to declare him Nigeria’s president-elect.

Alternatively, Atiku urged the court to cancel the election and order a fresh election due to alleged irregularities that marred the 25 February poll in thousands of polling units.

These are part of the seven prayers anchored on five grounds in the petition he filed against the victory of the president-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Tuesday.

His team of senior lawyers led by Joe-Kyari Gadzama, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), filed the petition at the Presidential Election Petition Court on Tuesday, beating the 21-day statutory deadline set for filing such case beginning from 1 March when INEC announced the final results of the election.

Atiku’s team of lawyers filed the petition around 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

The petition, jointly filed by Atiku and the PDP as co-petitioners, named INEC, Mr Tinubu and the APC as respondents.

INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu had on 1 March, declared Mr Tinubu, who polled 8,794,726, as the winner of the election.

The electoral body declared that Atiku came second after he polled a total of 6,984,520 votes.

Peter Obi of the Labour Party came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes, and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the NNPP came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.

Mr Obi, who is also challenging Mr Tinubu’s victory, filed his own petition at the court in Abuja on Tuesday. He is similarly asking the court to declare him the winner or cancel the election and order a rerun.

Laying four bases for the petition, Atiku and the PDP said Mr Tinubu’s election “is invalid by reason of noncompliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.”

Atiku also argued that INEC’s “failure to electronically transmit the election results in real-time” compromised the outcome of the presidential poll.

He added that the alleged substantial non-compliance with the law affected the result of the election, in that” Mr Tinubu “ought not to have been declared or returned as the winner of the election.”

Atiku further contended that INEC “wrongly returned” Mr Tinubu “as the winner of the election, allocating to him 8,794,726 votes while ascribing to him (Atiku) 6,984520 votes.”

He explained that contrary to INEC Chairman, Mr Yakubu’s repeated assurances in the build-up to the general elections to conduct the best election in Nigeria’s democratic history, the electoral umpire failed to electronically transmit results in real-time from polling units to INEC’s “electronic collation system and Results Viewing Portal (IReV)” using the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines.

He said “by reason of the foregoing, there could not have been any valid and lawful collation and announcement of the result of the election under the Electoral Act, without the prior electronic transmission from the polling units to INEC …IReV portal using the BVAS.”

The petitioners said INEC failed to comply with Section 66 of the Electoral Act which is incorporated with Section 134 of the Nigerian constitution. They argue that the law provides for “geographical spread” which must be met by the winner of the election.

Atiku equally premised his petition on the ground that the margin of lead – 1,810,206 votes – was less than the number of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) collected in “the polling units where elections were cancelled and did not hold across the country. ”

Consequently, Atiku argued that INEC’s declaration of Mr Tinubu as the winner of the poll was “hasty, premature and wrongful.”

The petitioners further accused INEC of manipulating votes as Electoral officials “suppressed” Atiku’s votes, crediting Messrs Tinubu and Obi with the said stolen votes.

Mr Tinubu is also said not to have been elected by a majority of lawful votes cast at the poll.

The petitioners also said Mr Tinubu at the time of the election was not qualified to vie for the presidency.

In seeking to upturn Mr Tinubu’s victory, Atiku set out seven prayers.

He urged the court to determine that Mr Tinubu was “not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast, and therefore the president-elect’s victory “is unlawful, wrongful, unconstitutional…null and void.”

Atiku prayed the court to determine that Mr Tinubu at the time of the election was not qualified to contest the said election.

“That it may be determined that the return of the 2nd Respondent (Mr Tinubu) by the 1st respondent (INEC) was wrongful, unlawful, undue, null and void having not satisfied the requirements of the Electoral Act and constitution…which mandatorily requires” Mr Tinubu “to score bot less than one quarter (25%) of the lawful votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the federal and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”

He urged the court to declare him the winner of the presidential election, as he “scored the majority of lawful votes cast at the presidential election.

In the alternative, Atiku asked the court to make an “order directing” INEC “to conduct a second election (run-off) between” him and Mr Tinubu.

“That the election to the office of the President of Nigeria held on 25 February, 2023, be nullified and a fresh election be ordered,” the petitioners prayed.