Lawyers to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar,
the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last
presidential election have said they are counting on the Supreme Court to
unravel the lies told by his opponent Muhammad Buhari as regards his academic
qualifications and other pertinent issues that formed a basis for their election
tribunal petition.
According to This Day, an unnamed
member of Atiku’s legal team said the basis of their appeal challenging the
unfavorable outcome at the tribunal to the Supreme Court, will be hinged on 70 points.
According to him, “We will file
latest on Monday, September 23, and at most, due to any unforeseen reason, by
September 24. Bear in mind that the deadline for submission is Wednesday. We
won’t file on Wednesday for tactical reasons.”
He said one of the 70 grounds of
appeal is that “the judgement of the PEPT was based on the facts; the judgement
was not on the issues presented to the Court of Appeal presidential tribunal by
the petitioner, especially in relation to the respondent’s academic
qualifications.”
He said, “Take, for instance, one
of the respondent’s witnesses, Major General Paul Tarfa (rtd), called by
President Muhammadu Buhari’s lawyers said that they did not give their
qualifications to the Military Board. Tarfa’s testimony is against the claim by
Buhari that the Nigeria military is in possession of his certificates.
“Secondly, Buhari said that he
was recruited into the military in 1961 and Tarfa said in 1962, so what is the
correct date of his recruitment into the army?Somebody is not telling the
truth.
“The issue in question is who
entered the different grades for him from both the Cambridge and the West
African School Certificate results. This is the first time that the court will
say that the documents are admitted in the interest of justice. So, who entered
the different grades for him and if he did it, why?
“One of the grounds of appeal is
that the President’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, brought the Cambridge
documents dated July 18 and testified on July 20. The point here is that it was
not pleaded, when the respondent replied to the petitions of Atiku. So,
speaking as in point of law, you don’t speak on documents not pleaded.
“The WAEC documents contradicted
the Cambridge documents. This is a case of forgery, inconsistency in documents.”
The lawyer added, “On the INEC
server, the judgement of the PEPT said the INEC server was hacked and we then
asked, which of the servers was hacked?
“The tribunal judgement was based
on the Electoral Act section 52 (1) (B), but this aspect of the law has since
been deleted in 2015. It is no longer in existence. This was the case in Wike
Vs Peterside.
“If the judgement said INEC
server was recklessly hacked, then, there is a server and, therefore, a
criminal offence. Yet, INEC did not claim so or that its documents were stolen.
How come the judge reached this scandalous decision?
“If section 52 (1) (B) is no
longer in existence, how come the lead judgement came to this decision? It was
not based on the documents pleaded. Therefore, how come it was decided so? That
means that the judge went on a voyage of discoveries and exploration. Buhari
was not accused of forgery. Rather, he was accused of lying, when he said the
army was in possession of his documents.
“In his form CF001, he presented
an affidavit, instead of his certificates. PEPT relied on the CV presented. We
are asking, is that supposed to be so? CV is basically to show working
experience. No Primary School certificate. The judgement was based on
inferences. The judge simply inferred.
“We are surprised that the PEPT
went the way it did. It is our view that the judges would have gone further to
help improve our electoral laws as well as use it to commence the reform of the
electoral laws. So, these are some of the issues that form the grounds of the
70 points of appeal at the Supreme Court.”
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