After weeks of suspense on whether the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate in the February 23 election, Atiku Abubakar, would approach the apex court in pursuit of justice, it appears as if battle has been shifted to the Supreme Court.
Atiku’s legal team on Tuesday formally filed their 66 grounds of appeal against the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal at the Supreme Court.
The appeal was filed two days to the deadline for such to be filed at the Supreme Court.
Blueprint reports that the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal had in its final verdict on the petitions by Atiku and the PDP announced the dismissal of the petitions in its entirety.
Signs that the verdict would be appealed were obvious were the judgment lasted as the Tribunal picked on grounds after grounds of the petition, thereby knocking them off, one after the other, including the existence of the controversial INEC server and President Muhammadu Buhari’s eligibility to stand for election.
The INEC server did not exist and Buhari was eminently qualified, educationally, to stand for election, the Tribunal affirmed.
As against the 70 points grounds for the appeal initially reported, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, a senior lawyer in the legal team of Atiku and PDP, disclosed that the appeal was predicated on 66 grounds, for which they believed justices of the tribunal erred in their verdict on Atiku and PDP’s petition against the election of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The appeal is reportedly based on issues bordering around the qualification of Buhari in the election and the controversial Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC’s) server amongst others.
Also listed was the grounds that the judgment of the tribunal was not based on the issues canvassed by the petitioners, especially in relation to the respondent’s academic qualifications.
Another ground of appeal is that the President’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, brought the Cambridge documents dated July 18 and testified on July 20.
The appellants are also claiming that the WAEC documents contradicted the Cambridge documents, alleging that it as a case of forgery and inconsistency in documents.
“On the INEC server, the judgment of the PEPT said the INEC server was hacked and we then asked; which of the servers was hacked?
“The tribunal judgment was based on the Electoral Act section 52 (1) (B), but this aspect of the law has since been deleted in 2015. It is no longer in existence. This was the case in Wike Vs Peterside.
”If the judgment said INEC server was recklessly hacked, then, there is a server and, therefore, a criminal offence. Yet, INEC did not claim so or that its documents were stolen.
”How come the judge reached this scandalous decision?
The appellants are there praying the apex court to hold that the tribunal erred in its decision and consequently set the tribunal’s judgment aside and go ahead to grant all the reliefs sought.
Atiku and his party, PDP had dragged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before the tribunal for declaring Buhari as winner of the Feb. 23 presidential election.
Dissatisfied, the petitioners had approached the apex court to reverse the judgment of the tribunal.
