- Atiku’s camp upbeat as fear grips APC, Buhari’s loyalists
By Ayo Esan
As the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal is set to deliver judgment in the matter between the candidate of the main opposition, Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and President Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling All Progressives Congress, tomorrow, over the results of last February’s presidential election, Abuja, the nation’s capital, will no doubt be the focus of all eyes across the world.
The petitioners have asked the five-man tribunal, led by Justice Mohammed Garba, to nullify President Buhari’s victory at the poll and either declare them the winner or order the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct a rerun.
The judgement is coming a few days after the Presidency allegedly pushed out a video to the public in which the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, was seen begging Nigerians to pardon President Muhammadu Buhari over his alleged false WAEC Certificate claims.
The PDP has, however, dismissed the plea by Mohammed that Nigerians should pardon President Buhari’s inability to present the minimum educational requirement of a secondary school certificate.
Speaking on the matter, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, urged Buhari to toe the path of honour by throwing in the towel, and immediately vacate office as President, having “scammed the entire country” over a certificate he did not possess.
It was gathered on Tuesday afternoon in Abuja that the ruling APC camp had been gripped by fears and apprehension as the issue of President Buhari’s certificate was one of the contending issues before the Tribunal.
There was also influx of APC leaders and chieftains to the nation’s capital on Tuesday evening. They were seen in groups in different places in the FCT discussing their fears and apprehension on the impending judgement of the Tribunal, in hushed tones.
The APC chieftains, according to information gathered, are tensed up and may likely meet at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa on Tuesday evening to strategise on the way forward for their candidate, President Buhari, and the party, as they anxiously await the outcome of the judgement.
While presenting his case before the Tribunal, the lead counsel to the PDP and Atiku, Levy Uzoukwu (SAN), asked the tribunal to hold that Section 138(1) of the Electoral Act stipulates that any candidate who submitted false information would nullify his candidacy.
He added that by the judgment of the Supreme Court in Abdulrauf Moddibbo versus Mustapha Usman SC/790/2019, delivered on 30 July, qualifications for election are not a pre-election matter.
He argued that Buhari in his Form CF001 submitted to INEC, listed three certificates such as First School Leaving Certificate, WAEC, and Cadet Certificate from Military School, but failed to attach them to the form.
INEC lead counsel, Yunus Ustaz Usman (SAN), said the Commission conducted the February 23 election in “total compliance with the Electoral Act and the petitioners can never dislodge that.”
He, therefore, asked the panel “to dismiss the petition, which was meant to test the river with both legs”.
On his part, the lead counsel to President Buhari, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), asked the tribunal to dismiss the petition for lacking in evidence, saying that Section 131 of the Nigerian Constitution did not demand that certificates be attached to the documents.
Counsel to the APC, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), said the PDP and Atiku, who alleged electoral irregularities in 119,973 polling units in 8,809 wards in 774 Local Government Areas, called only 62 witnesses out of which only five led evidence from the polling units.
But speaking on Tuesday, a Public Affairs Commentator based in Abuja, (names withheld) said the video allegedly pushed out by the Information and Culture Minister, Mohammed, wherein he was begging Nigerians on the claims that President Buhari falsely claimed to have a school certificate, was coming at a wrong time and must have worked against the interest of Buhari regarding tomorrow’s judgement.
He was of the opinion that such plea by Mohammed would not influence the Tribunal to bend the law after solid evidence against President Buhari had been presented before it.
He believed the video saga was a direct guilty plea, which would not save President Buhari from the course of justice in the matter.
According to the main opposition party, the PDP, Nigerians are anxiously waiting for the judiciary to do the right thing because it has proved its case.
On the part of the APC, the judgement from the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal has reportedly put it and its presidential candidate, President Buhari on edge.
The PDP said that the country was anxiously waiting for the judiciary to do the right thing because it had proved its case. It said that since the judiciary is the last hope of the masses, it had become imperative for it to address the substance of the petition by Atiku.
The PDP added that Nigerians were now anxiously looking up to the judiciary to exhibit the courage to do justice in the presidential election petition.
“The party says the general expectation pervading the nation across the board is that the judiciary, as the last hope of the common man, will be dauntless in addressing the substance of the petition by the peoples’ candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, in the collective quest to retrieve a stolen mandate through the legal process,” the party said.
On its part, the ruling APC expressed optimism that the tribunal would uphold President Buhari’s victory at the poll.
An APC senator in the 8th Senate, who preferred not to be named, said, “Yes you people are saying PDP and Atiku have a good case. How good the case is depends on who is talking. But you and I know that there is no how the court will sack Buhari for Atiku. Government has moved on.”
Speaking on Tuesday afternoon, a former deputy governor of Lagos State and chieftain of the PDP, Senator Kofoworola Akerele-Bucknor, like all other PDP stalwarts, stressed that the party and its candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, had a good case, which had been properly proved before the Tribunal.
Akerele-Bucknor, therefore, prayed that the Tribunal would have the fear of God and “deliver a good judgement.”
“ I fervently pray that the panel will have the fear of God and deliver a good judgement. Nothing more. I am optimistic,” she said.
