The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), Wednesday, in a unanimous judgement, quashed the petition by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, against the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2019 presidential poll.
As attested by Atiku’s lead counsel, the judgement, which started at about 10a.m., and ended at past 6p.m. (over eight hours), ranked as the longest judgement in the history of Nigeria’s jurisprudence.
Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Mohammed Garba, said the petitioner and his party failed to prove their allegations, which are criminal in nature, beyond all reasonable doubts or mathematical precision. The tribunal, therefore, affirmed Buhari’s election.
On the issue of Buhari’s qualification to contest the 2019 presidential election, Justice Garba Mohammed Buhari ruled that Buhari was not only qualified but also eminently qualified to contest the election, declaring that the petitioners (Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his party, PDP) could not run away from the fact that Buhari obtained WASCE which qualified him for the election.
Apart from being qualified, the court held that the president also obtained other certificates to validate claims that he is eminently qualified for the presidential poll.
On the issue of the existence of a server by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the tribunal ruled that there was no evidence that commission transmitted the results of the 2019 presidential election electronically to any server.
The court also held that there was no law in place in Nigeria that allows electronic transmission of results or the transmission of result using card reader going by the electoral act.
The court rose at 6.15 p.m. (local time).
More later.