The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja has dismissed the petition filed by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, challenging the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari during the February 23 election.
The tribunal dismissed Atiku’s petition for not being able to prove satisfactorily all the allegations he brought before the panel.
Delivering the judgement, the five-man panel led by Justice Mohammed Garba, dismissed the petition in its entirety. Justice Mohammed held that evidence giving by the 62 witnesses called by the PDP and Atiku did not have any impact in helping the petitioners’ case, adding that the petitioners could not prove that Buhari was not duly elected.
He further added that Atiku and the PDP have no evidence of non-compliance to the electoral act by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Justice Mohammed also held that the only way to prove cases of over-voting, electoral manipulation, among others was to tender the voters’ register, which the petitioner could not provide and that all the witnesses called by the petitioners failed to establish cases of over-voting.