The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja has dismissed the petition the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, lodged to challenge President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election. The Justice Mohammed Garba-led five-member panel tribunal held that the petitioners failed to prove any aspect of their petition. It held that they failed to discharge the burden of prove that was placed on them by the law. Justice Garba who gave the lead verdict, dismissed the petition in its entirety. Tribunal says none of the documents tendered by the petitioners was utilised to prove the allegations, such as over-voting. “In the final result, and I have come to the conclusion which is inevitable and unavoidable, that the petitioners have not proved any of the grounds of the petition in paragraph 15 of the petition. “This petition is accordingly and hereby dismissed in its entirety,” says Justice Garba.

Atiku server theory is a fraud and not recognized by Section 73 Of the Electoral Act which states: “Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Commission shall issue and publish, in the Gazette, guidelines for the elections which shall make provisions, among other things, for the step by step recording of the poll in the electoral forms as may be prescribed beginning from the polling unit to the last collation centre for the ward or constituency where the result of the election shall be declared’.

And section 74 says: ‘Every Result Form completed at the Ward, Local Government, State and National levels in accordance with the provision of this Act or any guidelines issued by the Commission shall be stamped, signed and countersigned by the relevant officers and polling agents at those levels and copies given to the police officers and the polling agents, where available.’ Atiku server is a fraud based on Section 73 Of the Electoral Act and section 74.

Atiku server theory is doomed because it could not produce the result of other 71 presidential candidates . The server is desperate, deluded and doomed because it is against Section 73 of the Electoral Act. I am confused about the server that produced only Atiku as the winner. I could not understand why Atiku Server failed to produce election results of more than 71 presidential candidates of the February election in Nigeria. Atiku’s result submitted at the tribunal was silent on the votes scored by the other 71 presidential candidates held in 119,973 polling units, collated in 8,809 wards across Nigeria, whereas INEC recorded 869, 758 votes for the candidates. Even though INEC released a list of 73 parties that contested the election, it failed to list any candidate for the Social Democratic Party (SDP) because two candidates were in court battling over the ticket. Atiku server was only designed for Buhari and Atiku results. INEC SERVER is not simply a social media blitz and result of 2019 presidential election was declared by INEC in line with Independent National Electoral Commission Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections, 2019 in pursuant of the powers conferred on the commission by the Electoral Act 2010, as amended.

Atiku Server faces momentous elections FRAUD in which the registered 84 million voters were set to elect a president for another four years. Atiku Server could not produce election results for 109 Senatorial districts and 360 House of Representatives constituencies. The number of presidential candidates seems to have set a record. “Can Atiku explain why his server could not provide results for all presidential candidates in the election?” Why his server did only captured the results of APC and PDP?
With results from all states during the elections, Buhari won with more than three million votes over his rival Atiku Abubakar. Mr Abubakar’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) called for a halt in the count, alleging irregularities. PDP chairman Uche Secondus called the count “incorrect and unacceptable”. The party said counting should be stopped, alleging data from voter card readers had been manipulated. Each party said the other was working with the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) to influence the vote, which was initially scheduled for 16 February but delayed for a week at the last minute. Delays and violence marred the run-up to the vote but no independent observer has said that there was electoral fraud.

Atiku had in the petition claimed that results from INEC server showed that he won the election with a total of 18, 356, 732 as against the 16,741,430 votes scored by President Muhammadu Buhari. He, however, said that the numbers were without the results from Rivers State, which he claimed were not uploaded on the server.

But INEC had during its final announcement of results for the election on February 27 returned President Muhammadu Buhari as winner with 15, 191, 847 votes.

It said Atiku scored 11, 262, 978 votes. The electoral umpire included collated result from Rivers State where out of 678,167 total votes cast, Atiku polled 473,871 while Buhari got 150, 710.

The results, which showed 43 per cent voter turnout out of the 82 million collated registered voters, also disagreed with the 36 per cent voter turnout declared by INEC.

The votes polled by the PDP candidate in the February 23 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, will increase with the collated results of the election in Rivers State as they were not included in his petition to the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal. After more than 48 hours of collation, President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has emerged winner of the presidential election.

He polled 15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest contender, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 11,262,978 votes.

But, looking beyond the APC and PDP, a total of 73 political parties participated in the election — so, how did these other parties fare? The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), released the final list of 72 presidential candidates and thousands of National Assembly candidates fielded by various political parties ahead of the Feb. 16 contests.

The final list released by INEC featured 144 names of presidential candidates and their running mates. However, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) does not have presidential candidate due to the court battle between ex- Governor Donald Duke and a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana over the ticket.

INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu said that the 2019 general elections would involve the highest number of registered voters and a record number of political parties.

Prof. Yakubu who stated this during a meeting between the commission and Committee of Vice Chancellors (CVC), said while the final register of voters stood at 84,004,084 some 91 political parties had fielded candidates for different elections. He said 1,904 candidates would slug it out for 109 senatorial slots and 4,680 for the 360 House of Representatives elections seats.

Nigeria’s is Africa’s most populous nation and INEC has reported that some 82 million people have registered to participate in the elections. The list also noted that one part, SDF, have yet to submit their candidates owing to a court injunction.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Inwalomhe Donald writes from Abuja