The Supreme Court has held that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the last presidential election, Atiku Abubakar failed to prove their claim that INEC had a server and that it transmitted election results electronically.
Justice Inyang Okoro who led the panel of the judges, while giving reasons for dismissing the appeal by the PDP and Atiku, held that they were wrong to have relied on results to get from a website, whose owner they could not establish, to claim to have won the election.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the last presidential election, Atiku Abubakar are absent in court as the Supreme Court begins the proceedings.
The Supreme Court had, on October 30 dismissed the appeal and promised to give reasons for its decision on a latter date.
When the court opened and the case was called, but no lawyer announced appearance for the petitioners. None of the PDP known faces were in court as against the situation on October 30, 2019 when chieftains of the party flooded the court.
Alex Izinyon (SAN) who represented Buhari, drew the court’s attention to the strange development and noted that it was against the court’s rules for an appellant to stay away from court when a decision is being taken on the appeal.
The court further resolved the 5th issue against the appellant, which relates to the admission of some documents tendered by the respondents to the petition before the lower court.
The judges also held that President Muhammadu Buhari was right not to have submitted his academic credentials to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
It held that Buhari was eminently qualified to contest the last presidential election.
It said, Buhari did not only show that he has secondary certificate and rose to the rank of Major General in the Army, attended military training, became the nation’s Head of State, could communicate in English and possessed primary school leaving certificate, all to the satisfaction of INEC.
The court upheld the decision of the PEPC on the issues of Buhari’s qualification and possession of relevant certificates.
The Supreme Court proceeded to dismiss the appeal after resolving all the five issues determined against the appellants.
Details shortly…
