Presidential election tribunal: Atiku, PDP seek inspection of poll materials

…Calls for impartial conduct of March 9 elections
…We are anxious to meet Atiku in court – APC
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, have approached the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja for an order compelling the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to give them access to inspect election materials used for the February 23 2019 Presidential election.

The petitioner approached the Tribunal through a member of the legal team, Chief Chris Uche, (SAN), who filed the ex-parte application on Tuesday in Abuja.

It prayed the tribunal to compel the INEC to surrender all the materials that was used for the February 23 presidential election for inspection.

The Tribunal will be sitting at the Court of Appeal Headquarters in Abuja and may consider the ex-parte motion which has INEC, President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as 1st to 3rd Respondents, this week.

In the motion ex-parte dated March 4, Atiku and the PDP applied for leave of the tribunal to allow them to inspect the Voters Register, the Smart Card Reader Machines, Ballot Papers and other vital documents that were used in the conduct of the presidential election.

They equally prayed the tribunal to compel the electoral body to allow their agents to scan and make photocopies of vital documents used in the conduct of the election, for the purpose of establishing alleged irregularities.

Chief Uche (SAN), made it clear to the tribunal that the reliefs sought against INEC was for the purpose of filing and maintaining an election petition they intend to lodge against the outcome of the 2019 Presidential Election.

The motion ex-parte motion was supported with a 12 paragraphed affidavit that was deposed to by one Col. Austin Akobundu (rtd), the director of Contact and Mobilisation of the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Council.

Atiku, who came second behind President Buhari of the APC, had earlier vowed to challenge the outcome of the presidential election in court, alleging that it was fraught with manifest irregularities.

He maintained that results collated by agents at various polling units across the federation was at variance with what was eventually declared by INEC in favour of President Buhari.

However, the PDP’s displeasure with the conduct of the February 23 Presidential and National Assembly elections took a new dimension as the party on Tuesday staged a protest march to the National Headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja.

Its national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, led other party stalwarts and hundreds of supporters on the protest that proceeded at 2.00pm from PDP Presidential Campaign Office, Legacy House, Maitama to the INEC’s headquarters on Zambezi Cresent, Maitama, Abuja.

The protesters were singing anti- government songs and displaying placards with inscriptions such as “INEC Give Us Original Result’, “Yakubu the Actor, Announce Original Result”, INEC do the right thing”, and “ECOWAS Save Our Democracy”.

Addressing the crowd and INEC officials that came to receive the protesters at the entrance to the Commission, Secondus said the party was protesting the many irregularities in the election, falsification of results, deliberate violence to invalidate votes in PDP stronghold areas and militarisation of the poll.

The chairman described the result declared by INEC as a rape of democracy and brazen denial of the Nigerian electorate their true choice which was the PDP and its Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

He later handed over a letter referenced PDP/DOM/INEC/19-004 dated Monday March 4, 2019 addressed to the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to a national Commissioner, Mrs. May Agbamuche

Titled ‘Cases of Infractions and deliberate violations of the electoral law and guidelines”, the letter signed by Secondus indicated that the infractions have very negative implications on the credibility, transparency and integrity of the entire electoral processes particularly the Presidential and National Assembly elections.

The party said it was imperative as the party approach the Gubernatorial and State House of Assembly elections billed for Saturday, March 9, 2019.

These infractions and deliberate violations, according to the party, include “The non-usage or selective enforcement of the Smart Card Reader (SCR) machines across the country.

We observed with regrets that the usage of the SCR machines were enforced strategically in the South-South, South-East and the North-Central zones of the country which are essentially PDP strongholds.

“This is radically different from what transpired in the North-West, North-East and the South-West which were estimated as the APC strongholds.

This is quite contrary to the provisions of Paragraph 10(a) & (b) of the Regulations and Guidelines governing the 2019 General Elections and all the assurances you, Prof. Yakubu Mahmood, frequently gave up to the last hours before the elections.

“The deliberate non-deployment of the Electronic Collation System (E-Collation) for the elections results from the units, through the ward centers to the Presidential Collation Centre in Abuja as provided for in the 2019 Electoral Regulations and Guidelines made by you, and as contained in your several official Press Statements is very suspect.

This is more so when you have never bothered to explain to Nigerians the justification for this sudden official somersault on such a critical component of the electoral process especially with all the tax payer’s money spent to install the facilities.

“The unconstitutional deployment of the armed forces especially soldiers and police for the illegitimate purposes to harassing, intimidating, suppressing of leaders of the PDP and suppression of voters in PDP strongholds across the country which are very well known to you.

“The use of these same security agents by the government to harass and intimidate Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) and certain INEC’s National Commissioners for the sake of forcing them to declare votes for the APC’s candidates throughout the country have been officially

or otherwise brought to your knowledge by the affected officers who even threatened to resign from their positions, yet you have decided to keep mute over it in a way portraying outright conspiracy and collusion of yourself and the commission with the APC government perpetrators.

“We also want to bring to your knowledge that most of the collation centres in the country were cordoned off by officers and men of the armed forces who chased away accredited agents and or candidates of our party, the PDP, from such centres while the results of the elections from the units were being manipulated, mutilated and altered to suite the dictates and criminal desires of the APC led government. These results that were tampered with were accepted by you and your commission and announced as the results of the elections.

“In places like Lagos, Rivers, Nassarawa, Abia, Benue, Plateau, Ondo, Osun states et al, results of duly conducted elections were illegally canceled especially in the PDP dominated areas to reduce the margin of victory in those states in favour of APC candidates.

Is it not surprising to you that Lagos State with over six million voters can only return less than one million votes? This was the case in virtually all PDP dominated states where voter’s suppression was deployed as a major strategy by you and the APC government in active collaboration of some of your unscrupulous RECs and staffers.

“We are sure that till date the commission does not know the number of polling units where elections were cancelled and the total number of registered voters at such polling units.

Yet you hurriedly announced the results of the elections especially the Presidential election only to come up with a Press Statement that supplementary elections will be conducted on March 9, 2019 along with the Gubernatorial and House of Assembly Elections. This to say the least is a major dent on the credibility and image of the commission.

“Under your watch as Chairman of INEC for the first time in our nation’s history, the election materials of all categories; sensitive and non-sensitive, were contracted to be printed by a person who is not just a card-carrying member of a political party – the APC, but also a Senatorial Candidate of the party in Niger State.

Arising from this, these sensitive materials were seen in several wrong and unauthorised hands and places before and during the elections.

Till this moment, your commission has not raised any concerns or set up any enquiry to uncover the immediate or remote causes of such criminal and unconstitutional bastardisation of the electoral process.

“We have taken time to chronicle the above fundamental deliberate violations and infractions of the Electoral Law, Regulations and Guidelines and all known canons of electoral best practices by your Commission in obvious complicity and collaboration with APC and security agencies to rig the elections and rob our party of victory”.

The party reminded INEC that as the nation inches towards Saturday, March 9, 2019 elections, the Commission Chairman must do everything to right these grave anomalies to save himself and the commission from this woeful embarrassment as he may go down in history as the worst Chairman of INEC in the nation’s history.

Responding on behalf of INEC, Mrs. Agbamuche promised to deliver the letter to Prof. Yakubu, adding that the Commission will take time to dissect the letter and take note of vital issues raised.

She, however, promised that INEC will continue to deliver on its constitutional responsibilities and will continue to conduct free, fair and credible elections.

Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council has stated that neither the party nor the campaign council has the intention on prevailing on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, from seeing redress in court.

Atiku Abubakar claimed there was massive rigging in the concluded presidential election held on the 23 February where Presidential Muhammadu Buhari of the APC was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

However, the Presidential and National Assembly election was described as free, fair and credible by the International and Local Observers.

A press statement on Tuesday signed by the Director, Strategic Communications, Festus Keyamo, in Abuja, said that attention of the council has been drawn to some news items and posts on social media reporting that the council wrote a letter to some international bodies to prevail on Alhaji Atiku Abubakar not to proceed to court to challenge the result of the 2019 Presidential Election.

He said: “Our official position is that we believe that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has a constitutional right to seek redress in court and we do not seek in any way to curtail that right.

In fact, it is the resort to court that is the only democratic way to ventilate his perceived grievance and any attempt to restrict or discourage the exercise of such right would be an invitation to anarchy.

“Our investigation reveals that a letter to that effect was purportedly written by a certain ‘Buhari Campaign Organisation’. This is the second time we will be informing the public that the said ‘Buhari Campaign Organisation’ does not act at the behest of the APC Presidential Campaign Council nor does it represent the Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation in any way.

As a result, whatever it has released does not represent the position of the APC Presidential Campaign Council or President Muhammadu Buhari”.

Keyamo further noted that “we are very anxious to meet Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in court in order to show the world in a conclusive manner the free and fair nature of the comprehensive defeat of Atiku at the polls”.

“An election is not termed ‘rigged’ only by the mere claim of it by the loser. That is what Atiku and the PDP want to ram down our throats.

Unfortunately for them, international, continental and sub-regional observers who can be seen as neutral by all standards, all declared it to be free, fair and credible. No ego-massaging narrative can change that”.

The Campaign Council therefore disassociated self from the letter purportedly written by one of, perhaps, many support groups of President Muhammadu Buhari, adding; “They may have a right to their opinion, but it does not represent our official position”.