Atiku Abubakar, the flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), has insisted that Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, (APC) is not qualified to contest and could not have won the 25th February presidential election.
Atiku, in the petition, marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023, and which filing process at the Registry of the Presidential Election Petition Court, (PEPC), in the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal Court, was perfected late in the night on Tuesday, challenged the declaration of Tinubu and applied for the withdrawal of the Certificate of Return issued to him by the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC).
He maintained that the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election was “invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022”.
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Atiku, through his team of lawyers led by Joe Kyari Gadzama, SAN, further argued that Tinubu’s election was invalid by reason of corrupt practices.
“The 2nd Respondent was not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast at the Election.
“The 2nd Respondent was at the time of the Election not qualified to contest the Election”, Atiku added while listing grounds he said the court should consider nullifying Tinubu’s election.
He prayed the court to declare him the winner of the presidential election, having secured the second-highest number of lawful votes cast at the election.
It will be recalled that the Labour Party, LP, and its candidate, Peter Obi, had Monday night, also filed a petition before the court to void the declaration of Tinubu as the President-elect.
They prayed the court to hold that Tinubu was not legally qualified to contest the election, alleging that he was previously convicted and fined the sum of $460,000.00 by the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, in Case No: 93C 4483, for an offence involving dishonesty and drug trafficking.
Obi prayed the court to declare him as the candidate that secured the majority of the lawful votes cast with the required constitutional spread of not less than 25% of the votes cast in at least 2/3 of the States of the Federation, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
In the alternative, he prayed the court to order a fresh poll, with the exclusion of both Tinubu and the APC, by virtue of their non-qualification to participate in the election.
It will be recalled that INEC had on March 1, announced Tinubu as the winner of the presidential poll, ahead of 17 other candidates that contested the election.
It declared that Tinubu scored a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku who polled a total of 6,984,520 votes and Obi who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.
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