The Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his party on Tuesday called nine witnesses who testified in his petition before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) praying for the nullification of the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari at the February 23, 2019 on grounds of non-compliance with electoral laws, violence, thuggery, non-accreditation of voters and non-qualification of Buhari to contest the election.
The witnesses, who were led in their evidence in chief by Atiku’s counsel, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN) are Tanko Birchi from Niger State, Salisu Yusuf Maijigiri, PDP State Chairman, Katsina State, Salisu Garba Funtua, Abdusalam Idris, Aliu Umar Ustas, Ibrahim Musa, Audu Sanni, Balarabe Usman and Umar Alhaji.
In their evidence, the witnesses disputed the return of president Muhhamadu Buhari by INEC as winner of the presidential election. They maintained in the three states of Katsina, Kebbi and Niger where they voted and monitored the election that the presidential poll was characterised by rigging, allocation of votes to parties, use of thuggery to cause mayhem, non-accreditation of voters, over-voting, cancellation and alteration of election results as well as the use of Police to intimidate, harass and coerce to do their biddings on the election day.
The nine witnesses told the tribunal led by Justice Mohammed Garba that political thugs were used by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to chase away PDP agents thereby making some of the agents not to sign some result sheets.
One of the witnesses, Salisu Yusuf Maijigiri, who is the chairman of Katsina State PDP told the tribunal that 1, 555, 633 votes credited to President Buhari was not the true reflection of what transpired on the election day, maintaining that the figure was just allocated to the winner.
He alleged that agents of PDP in the 34 local government areas of the state were chased away while the ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were substituted with untrained ones used to produce fake results in the state.
Maijigiri insisted that PDP won in Katsina State with 905,000 votes while APC came second with 872,000 votes from the result collated by his party.
Another witness Salisu Garba Funtua alleged over voting on the election day because card readers were abandoned.
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He further claimed that election was cancelled in several places due to the failure of the card reader.
Under cross-examination by counsel to President Buhari, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), the witness maintained that the election was not free or fair because of over-voting and other malpractices.
Another witness, Abdulsalam Idris in his own testimony, told the tribunal that Atiku and PDP never conceded defeat to Buhari and APC because the February 23 election cannot be called an election in the full meaning of democracy.
Another witness, Aliu Umar Ustas, who was a local government collation officer for Atiku alleged that Police connived with APC members to cheat the PDP.
Under cross-examination by counsel to the APC, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), the witness emphasized that his party collated detail result and that the results are being kept with the party.
In his own evidence, Tanko Birchi, a lawyer and businessman admitted that he was not physically present in all polling units but received complains in writing and verbal on the irregularities that characterised the election and that the complains have been delivered to the party national secretariat.
Responding to a question from the APC lawyer, the witness said that he heard that President Buhari was a general in the Nigerian Army and that he was in primary school between 1983 and 1985 when Buhari was a military president.
The tribunal then adjourned till Thursday for the continuation of hearing of Atiku and PDP’s petition, while hearing continues in the petition brought before the tribunal by the Hope Democratic Party (HDP) and its presidential candidate, Ambrose Owuru, also challenging Buhari’s election.
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