Nigeria’s Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT, on Wednesday dismissed the poll petition filed by main opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to overturn the result of February’s presidential election which declared 76-year-old former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari as the elected leader, reported Africa News. Buhari got 56 percent of the vote against 41 percent for Abubakar.
Mere hours after Buhari was declared the victor, Abubakar, the candidate of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), filed a petition against incumbent Buhari’s reelection citing electoral irregularities.
“This petition is hereby dismissed in its entirety,” Justice Mohammed Lawal Garba said in announcing the ruling.
All five judges who presided over the tribunal dismissed the challenge by a unanimous decision thereby affirming Buhari’s win.
“The petitioners have a duty to prove all the allegations which are criminal in nature beyond reasonable doubt,” one of the judges said in his ruling.
The tribunal rejected all three of Atiku’s claims. The PDP leader alleged that the election was marred by irregularities, that he received more votes than Buhari and that the president did not have a secondary school certificate, a basic requirement to contest the election.
“It is time for the country to move forward as one cohesive body, putting behind us all bickering and potential distractions over an election in which Nigerians spoke clearly and resoundingly,” President Buhari said in a statement on Wednesday following the tribunal’s ruling.
The PDP rejected the ruling and said it would mount an appeal against the ruling at the country’s Supreme Court. The party described the judgment as a “direct assault on the integrity of our nation’s justice system”.
