Supreme court gives reasons for throwing out Atiku's appeal against Buhari
As promised, the Supreme Court on Friday, November 15, finally told Nigerians why it threw out the appeal filed by Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), against Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 election.
According to the Supreme Court, Atiku and the PDP could not prove their claim that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had a server and engaged in electronic transmission of results of the election. The court further said the duo was not right to have relied on a website whose owner is not known for the results of the election. The Nation quotes Justice Inyang Okoro as saying: “I agree entirely with the court below that the appellants failed to prove that INEC has the server from which they got their figures. “As a result, all the results, calculations and analysis based on the results claimed, are of no moment. The apex court also declared that President Buhari was right over his non-submission of his credentials to INEC during the electioneering. It declared that there is no law that mandates candidates to submit their academic certificates to the electoral umpire as qualification for elections. It added that the constitution only stipulates secondary school as qualification but did not state that a candidate must possess the 'secondary school certificate'. With this, the Supreme Court said even without a secondary school certificate, one can seek election.