Presidential election: PDP, Atiku file petition a day to deadline

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the February 23, 2019 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, said they have filed their petition at the tribunal, challenging the validity of the election in which President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was returned for a second term.

PDP’s National Legal Adviser, Emmanuel Enoidem and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mike Ozekhome said the party and Atiku filed a joint petition yesterday at the secretarial of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) in Abuja.

Enoidem and Ozekhome spoke while exiting the tribunal’s secretariat situated at the Abuja division of the Court of Appeal on Monday evening.

Both lawyers gave insights to the content of the petition and their expectations at the tribunal.

Enoidem said: “We are here to present our joint petition for our party, the PDP and candidate our candidate. The last day for the petition is actually tomorrow, but we decided to file today.

“We asked that our candidate, who won the election massively across the country, be declared the winner of that election.

“In the alternative, we also asked that the election be set aside on the grounds of irregularities, which were very apparent across the country.

“We have a pool of 20 Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), who are tested in election petition matters and other senior lawyers, who are also working with them.

“So, we are very ready for the petition. The petition is well packaged. The depositions are well put together.

“More than 400 witnesses are going to testify in this petition. Nigerians are at home with what happened on February 23 in this country in relation to the sham they called election.

“Of course, we are going to re-present the facts to Nigerians, as the facts are already in the domain of Nigerians. We are not going to manufacture facts.

Ozekhome, who came out of the tribunal’s secretariat later, said he is a member of the petitioners’ legal team and that the petit on is “strong, solid and unassailable.”

He noted that, with only one day to the deadline for filing of the petition, the late filing was because the Independent National Electoral Commission failed to cooperate in terms of providing easy access to the electoral materials.

Ozekhome added: “We have up till tomorrow (Tuesday), to file but we have been having been having some challenges from the INEC itself in terms of assessing materials used during the elections. But I believe we will get there.

“Our petition is quite solid, strong unassailable and we believe that by the grace of God, the true keeper and owner of the mandate will have his mandate given to him.”