President Muhammadu Buhari

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on Thursday in Abuja dismissed the petition filed by Hope Democratic Party (HDP) challenging President Muhammadu Buhari’s election in the Feb.23 general election.

Delivering judgment, Justice Mohammed Garba, Chairman of the five-man panel held that the tribunal lack the jurisdiction to entertain the matter.

Garba said the action was an abuse of court processes, adding that the premise on which the petition was hinged was unknown to the country’s Constitution.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the decision was unanimous as there was no dissenting judgment.

The Political Party and its Presidential Candidate, Ambrose Owuru had prayed the tribunal to set aside the outcome of the election on grounds that INEC allegedly failed to follow the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010.

The petitioners had averred that the electoral body’s abrupt postponement of the poll earlier scheduled for Feb. 16 was deceptive and done to favour a particular candidate.

The petitioners contended that Oworu, emerged winner of the election through a referendum conducted on Feb.16 by scoring 50 million votes across the country.

They had submitted that Nigerian citizens participated in the Feb. 16 referendum as required by law and therefore urged the tribunal to nullify the declaration of Buhari by INEC as president and in his place, restore Owuru as the authentic winner.

Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, Counsel for the president had urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition on the grounds that it is frivolous, baseless and lacking in merit.

Olanipekun had told the tribunal that the petitioners did not in any way adduce evidence on how the referendum was conducted and who conducted it in line with the provisions of the law.

He further explained that referendum was not known to the country’s law as a procedure to elect citizens into positions of governance.

Olanipekun further said he had studied carefully the final address of the HDP and its presidential candidate and there was nowhere they made any case against president Buhari.

On his part, Mr Yunus Usman, SAN, urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition with substantial cost to serve as a deterrent to those who may wish to file frivolous and baseless petitions in the 2023 elections and beyond.

Usman argued that the petition lacked merit because the electoral body conducted an election and not a referendum and that the claims of the two petitioners were strange to the electoral umpire.

He, therefore, urged the tribunal to uphold the declaration of Buhari as the winner of the Feb. 23 presidential election.

Also, Chief Akin Olujimi, SAN, Counsel for the All Progressive Party (APC) aligned with the other respondents to demand the dismissal of the petition for lacking in merit.