Atiku’s petition suffers setback, Labour Party kicks, as Presidential Tribunal upholds Tinubu’s victory

The Presidential Election Petitions Court on Wednesday struck out the petition of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, alleging that President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) owns dual citizenship. 

Justice Stephen Adah, who took over from Justice Haruna Tsammani, after a review of the evidence and documents tendered, struck out the evidence of some of Atiku’s witnesses on the grounds that that their witness statements on oath were not filed along with his petition.

The court also expunged 37 exhibits tendered by the witnesses from the court’s records.

On the issue of dumping of documents on the court, he held that this would only go to the weight to be attached to such evidence.

On the issue of Tinubu’s conviction and the issue of his dual citizenship, the Tribunal again held like it earlier did that this issues were incompetent and liable to be struck out and same were indeed struck out.

After this, Justice Adah handed over to Justice Tsammani, the leader of the five-man panel, who then proceeded to the deal with the main petition.

The court spelt out four grounds for determination.

On the inability of the election officers to transmit, of the 27 witnesses called by the petitioner, 10 were polling unit agents who testified as to how the elections were conducted in their different polling unit.

All 10 of the witnesses testified that the voting went well and was peaceful in their different polling units but they all said they could not upload results electronically to the portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), so they entered the results manually and took same to the ward and or state collation center.

The witnesses were emphatic that voting went well, party agents signed the results but the only difficulty was in uploading the results electronically.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party has rejected the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court.

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Obiora Ifoh, made the party’s position known in Abuja, shortly after the court announced its decision.

Ifoh said, “The Labour Party watched with dismay and trepidation the dismissal of petitions by the five-man panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani today and we reject the outcome of the judgment in its entirety because justice was not served and it did not reflect the law and the desire of the people.

“Nigerians were witnesses to the electoral robbery that took place on February 25, 2023, which was globally condemned but the Tribunal in its wisdom refused to accept the obvious.

“What is at stake is democracy and we will not relent until the people will prevail.

We salute the doggedness of our team of lawyers who fearlessly exposed the wrath in our system.

“We can only weep for democracy in Nigeria but we refuse to give up on Nigeria.

“Details of the party’s position will be presented after consultation with our lawyers after the Certified True Copy of the Judgement.

“We urge all lovers of democracy to remain focused and hopeful because a new Nigeria is possible.”