PDP Atiku Abubaker’s dreams to be President was dashed on Wednesday at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal as Justice Mohammed Garba led Panel dismissed his petition in its entirety.
Here is the blow to blow accounts of how Atiku lost to Buhari at the Tribunal.
1. The tribunal accepted that Atiku and the PDP had the right to bring its petition to the court,
2. Based on the army’s statement and the evidence before it. The tribunal agrees that indeed Buhari has a
WASC certificate …
3. The Panel held that It will be repugnant to common sense to hold that based on the evidence before the court, Buhari does not have a WASC certificate.
4. Buhari’s credentials are indeed impressive enough to earn him the seat of president. It held that Buhari is not only qualified – he is eminently qualified
5. The tribunal said the issue of failure to attach a certificate had been over flogged by Team Atiku.
6. The tribunal held that the onus rests squarely on the petitioner to prove that Buhari has no qualification and falsely swore an affidavit and not on INEC
7. It held that the variance in name ‘Mohamed’ does not affect the evidence that Buhari doesn’t possess a WAEC Certificate.
8. The Tribunal held that the results declared by INEC are presumed correct, authentic and true until proved otherwise
9. There is no provision or electronic transmission of results by electronic server, smart card reader or any other means. Nothing in the law empowers INEC staff to use smart card readers for collation and transmission of results
10. INEC guidelines cannot be elevated above the electoral act, which only calls for manual collation and transmission of results’
11. That the anonymous website owned by an anonymous whistleblower is doubtful and unreliable for information to proof that INEC manipulated the poll
12. Atiku’s IT witnesses cannot be called expert witnesses as their evidence is based on hearsay and inadmissible
13. The tables of alleged correct results presented by Atiku was based on arbitrary evidence.
14. After dismissing other matters the court declared Atiku’s petition has been dismissed in its entirety – Team Atiku, it said did not satisfy the burden of proof.
Will this be the last word on the matter?, will Atiku appeal the ruling?