3 More Presidential Candidates Join Atiku To Challenge Buhari’s Victory

Three more presidential candidates have separately approached the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja, demanding that it voids the result of the February 23 presidential election.

The battle for who emerges Nigeria’s President in the next four years was majorly between the President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

PDP and Atiku have already filed their petition before the Presidential Election Tribunal.

However, in their various petitions, the three presidential candidates, of the Hope Democratic Party, HDP, Chief Ambrose Owuru; Peoples Democratic Movement, PDM, Aminchi Habu and Coalition for Change, C4C, Geff Chizee Ojinka, urged the tribunal to invoke its powers and quash the declaration of President Buhari as the bonafide winner of the 2019 presidential election.

In their separate petitions, they alleged that the election was characterised by manifest irregularities, adding that the Electoral Act was not substantially complied with by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

HDP’s Chief Ambrose Owuru, whose petition marked as CA/ PEPC/001/2019, cited the APC and the INEC as Respondents.

Owuru’s total votes in the presidential election was 1,663.

Also, PDM’s Habu, in another petition registered as CA/PEPC/004/2019, equally challenged the outcome of the presidential poll.

Similarly, in its own petition marked CA/PEPC/003/2019, C4C and its presidential candidate, Ojinka, also urged the tribunal to nullify President Buhari’s election.

The C4C garnered a total of 2,391 votes at the presidential poll and cited the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, as the 2nd Respondent in its case.

“Petitioners contend that the above election was vitiated by substantial non compliance with mandatory statutory provisions, which irregularity substantially affected the election such that the 1st Respondent was not entitled to be returned as the Winner of the Presidential election,” the C4C party added.

The Justice Abdul Aboki led tribunal had on Wednesday, ordered that President Buhari should be served with a copy of the the petition marked as CA/ PEPC/002/2019, which was filed by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar. The tribunal directed that Buhari should be served with all the legal processes, through any senior officer at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja.