Presidential election: Hope for truce fades •As Atiku inaugurates legal team, says I won’t mortgage mandate

Hopes of an early rapprochement between President Muhammadu Buhari and his main challenger in the February 23 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, over the outcome of the poll in which Buhari was declared winner, faded at the weekend with the PDP candidate insisting on pursuing legal option.

It will be recalled that following the announcement of President Buhari as the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday, having polled 15,191,847, Atiku rejected the outcome of the election, citing widespread irregularities, even as he expressed his readiness to seek redress at the court.

Atiku’s rejection of the results and subsequent refusal to concede defeat had, however, been followed by efforts from different quarters, especially the Abubakar Abdulsalami National Peace Committee, to prevail on the former vice-president to accept the outcome of the poll.

As part of such efforts, the committee, on Thursday, met with Atiku, with reports that the former vice-president might reconsider his stance on the outcome of the election, a development that is now a tall order going by Atiku’s insistence at the weekend to retrieve his mandate.

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Atiku, at the weekend, inaugurated a legal team to challenge the result of the election, saying “I have just inaugurated my legal team and charged them with the responsibility of ensuring that our stolen mandate is retrieved.”

While inaugurating the team, which is to be headed by Dr Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, Atiku assured Nigerians that sooner than later, the judiciary would “give a judgement that will represent a historic denunciation of electoral fraud and mandate bandit.”

The former vice-president, Atiku, assured that “under no circumstance” would he mortgage the mandate of Nigerians freely given him on February 23, a position that seemed to have sounded a death knell on all efforts to pressure him to accept the result of the election.

Atiku, who was also reacting to the arrest of his son-in-law and finance director of his group of companies, Alhaji Babalele Abdullahi, by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), in Abuja on Saturday, said in a statement signed by his media adviser, Paul Ibe, stating that the invasion was carried out “in a desperate move to have Atiku Abubakar concede and congratulate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari,”

“As a law abiding citizen, Atiku Abubakar recognises the constitutional role of the EFCC and, indeed, any other agency of the government to carry out investigations, but will not be cowed by any attempt to blackmail him into mortgaging his mandate,” the statement said.

 

Our legal team ready for tribunal—APC

But in a swift reaction, the APC, at the weekend disclosed its readiness to defend the mandate of President Buhari in court, saying that its legal team was already in place.

Spokesperson of the Buhari campaign organisation, Festus Keyamo, SAN, told Sunday Tribune that a legal team was already in place.

The senior advocate, however, declined to reveal the identities of lawyers hired for the president’s defence, noting that the time wasn’t ripe for the team’s unveiling.

The Court of Appeal in Abuja serves as the presidential election petition tribunal.

Appeals arising from the tribunal are handled by the Supreme Court.

All presidential elections since 1999 had been resolved by the judiciary save for the 2015 poll, lost by the then-incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan.

All had been resolved in favour of the declared winners by the Nigerian electoral body, INEC.

The closest to a defeat for a declared winner was the 2007 split judicial decision of four to three at the apex court, in favour of then-winner late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

The full panel of seven justices of the final court gave a minority decision to then-challenger, now-President Buhari. Those who ruled in favour of Buhari then were Justices Mariam Aloma Mukhtar, George Oguntade and Sylvester Onnoghen.

 

Atiku’ll reclaim stolen mandate at the tribunal 

Earlier, the national leadership of the PDP had refuted the claim that Atiku made some demands of President Buhari, describing such claim as a fabrication being peddled by the Buhari Presidency and the APC.

While noting that it was absolute falsehood and outright lies, the main opposition party stated “categorically, without mincing words,” that Atiku had not, and will never, make or accept any condition from President Buhari regarding the rigged February 23, 2019 Presidential election, which he (Atiku) clearly won.

According to a statement issued in Abuja, on Saturday, by Kola Ologbondiyan, National Publicity Secretary and Director, Media & Publicity PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, “the Buhari Presidency and the APC know that their electoral robbery cannot stand before any noble justices and are now attempting to use all sorts of blackmail and shenanigans to derail the quest by Nigerians to reclaim the stolen mandate at the tribunal.”

The statement added: “However, let it be known to President Buhari and the APC that Atiku Abubakar and the PDP are standing shoulder to shoulder with Nigerians in this collective determination to take back the stolen mandate and we are not ready for any form of negotiation with anybody on this matter.

“Our party and candidate remain committed to the huge sacrifices made by Nigerians in ensuring our collective victory as delivered at the polling units across the country; we are mindful of the pains that Nigerians are passing through since the subversion of their will at the polls; we are sensitive to the expectations that millions of compatriots place on our shoulders in this struggle and we will never let Nigerians down.

“We have all the authentic results from all the polling units as well as forensic evidence of manipulations by the APC and INEC. We will bare them all at the tribunal and the court will give justice to Nigerians.

“On that note, the PDP states unequivocally that nothing will change its resolve to pursue this despicable electoral fraud, unknown in our political history, to its end.

“We shall devote every energy necessary to reclaim our mandate and have Atiku Abubakar declared President, in line with the will of the people as delivered at the polling units on February 23, 2019.

“Anything short of this is not acceptable and no amount of false reports, connivance, contrivance, intimidation, harassment and fresh attacks on our leaders, including the Director General of our Presidential Campaign, Senate President Bukola Saraki, whose residence was besieged by security agents last night, can alter this resolve.”