ON THURSDAY. Atiku vs Buhari: What happened at Presidential Tribunal on Thursday

The Presidential Election Tribunal on Thursday opened hearing in the petition filed by the PDP and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, challenging President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory with 883 exhibits from Niger State admitted so far.

INEC led other respondents to object the admissibility of those electoral materials as exhibits, NAN reports.

Justice Mohammed Garba has asked counsel to respondents to objections at a later stage. 

FAZ NOTE TV  had reported that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar, Wednesday lost bid to reopen argument on issues of certain objections and competence filed by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, against his petition.

The Tribunal held that Atiku cannot be allowed to reopen the said argument especially to file counter affidavit on the objection made against his petition because the mandatory seven days to do so had elapsed.

The APC through his counsel, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), had filed a motion dated May 15, in which he prayed the presidential election petition tribunal to strike out the entire petition of the PDP candidate on the ground that the petition did not comply with relevant laws.

In the alternative, Fagbemi had on June 11, while moving the motion, prayed that several paragraphs in Atiku’s petition be expunged, claiming that they were vague allegations that couldn’t be supported by law.