Few days to the expiration of the 21 days allowed by law to file a petition to challenge the declaration of election result, Bauchi State chapter of All Progressive Congress (APC) and the party’s gubernatorial candidate in the last gubernatorial election, Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar have on Friday filed a petition at Election Petition Tribunal challenging the declaration of PDP candidate, Bala Muhammed Abdulkadir as the Governor-elect.
While speaking with newsmen shortly after submitting the petition at the tribunal, the State APC Chairman Uba Ahmed Nana said that they were there to formally submit their complaint against the gubernatorial election and seek justice in favour of the APC and its candidate for the election who is the incumbent Governor of the State, Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar.
He further stated that the party has already hired the services of four Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) to file and prosecute the case, expressing hope that at the end, the party and its candidate would triumph in court.
But in a swift reaction to the development, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) opined that the litigation initiated by the outgoing Governor and his party, APC was only meant to waste government resources boasting that the Tribunal will reaffirm its victory.
State Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Yayanuwa Zainabari who reacted to the development in an interview with our Correspondent on phone said it was ridiculous for the Governor to allege that he was rigged out when he “was the one with the power of incumbency and has control of security agents”.
He claimed that the election in all the local government areas of the state was violent free adding that even in areas where results were cancelled, the supplementary election was conducted by INEC where their candidate, Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir won again convincingly.
“Just like we won the case filed by the governor at the federal high court in Abuja against the results of Tafawa Balewa local government, we will win again in the tribunal. We are ready to defend our mandate and over 50 independent lawyers have already indicated an intention to defend us in any court”, he stated.
It would be recalled that the outgoing Governor had earlier conceded defeat and congratulated the Governor-elect but later made a U-turn claiming that the National Leadership of the party and the President, Muhammadu Buhari asked him to go to the tribunal to challenge the election results.
The Governor said that considering that he is a party loyalist and as such is in support of its new decision, he decided to go along with the party by heading to the Tribunal.
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