President-elect Bola Tinubu has told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja that Atiku Abubakar couldn’t have won the February 25 poll because he (Atiku) was a serial election loser.
Tinubu, in a reply through his team of lawyers led by Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), described the petition filed by Atiku against his election victory as “a gross abuse of court processes.”
Tinubu said: “The 1st petitioner (Atiku) has been consistently contesting and losing successive presidential elections in Nigeria since 1993, whether at the party primary election level or at the general election,” Tinubu said.
The President-elect recalled that Atiku in 1993, lost the Social Democratic Party (SDP) primary election to the late Chief M.K.O Abiola.
He said “in 2007, he lost the presidential election to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.”
Tinubu said in 2011, the former vice president lost the PDP presidential primary election to President Goodluck Jonathan and in 2015, he lost the APC primary election to President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said in 2019, Abubakar lost the presidential election to Buhari; and now in 2023, he had, again, lost the presidential election to him.
Atiku Abubakar, 1st petitioner, and PDP, 2nd petitioner, in the petition marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023, had sued INEC, Tinubu and APC as 1st to 3rd respondents respectively.
The petitioners are seeking the nullification of the February 25 presidential poll.
Tinubu, who defeated 17 other candidates who took part in the election, scored a total of 8,794,726 votes, the highest of all the candidates.
Atiku came second with 6,984,520 votes in the poll; Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) came third with 6,101,533 votes.
However, Abubakar and the PDP are asking the tribunal to set aside Tinubu’s victory and to declare Abubakar winner of the election.
In the alternative, they want an order mandating INEC to conduct a fresh election, without the participation of APC and its candidate.
In a preliminary objection marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate prayed the court to dismiss the entire petition.
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Responding, Tinubu argued that the entire petition constituted an abuse of processes of court.
According to the President-elect, it was not a surprise or not by accident that the electorate rejected the 1st petitioner at the polls of the presidential election held on February 25.
He said he was ready to lead evidence to proof to the court that a host of states controlled by PDP and their governors protested against Abubakar’s emergence as party’s candidate and vowed never to support his candidature.
He said he would “lead evidence to show that the 1st petitioner could not even campaign or canvass for votes in some of the states controlled by the 2nd petitioner, including Rivers and Oyo states where the 2nd respondent (Tinubu) defeated the 1st petitioner (Abubakar) by a wide margin.
Tinubu, who said former vice president having lost at the election had no right to be declared as winner under the Nigerian laws, prayed the court to dismiss the petition for lacking in merit, substance and sincerity.
He described the petition as being “frivolous, vexatious, highly misconceived and disclosing of no reasonable cause of action.”
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