The Atiku/Obi Presidential election petition legal team has asked the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa to immediately appoint a new chairman to head the five-member panel of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
Following a motion by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), counsel to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Justice Bulkachuwa recused herself as chairman and member of the panel hearing the PDP and Atiku’s petition challenging the declaration of Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the February 23 presidential election on personal grounds.
One of the counsels in Atiku’s legal team, Silas Onu, in a letter dated May 31, 2019, addressed to the Appeal Court president said, at the end of the proceedings of May 22, 2019, on Atiku, PDP petition, Bulkachuwa recused herself and promised to appoint another justice to replace her and continue in the hearing of the petition.
“My Lord, it is nine days since the date my Lord recused himself and nothing had been heard regarding the replacement that was to be made thereafter.
“Considering the strict requirements of keeping to the constitutional calendar for a petition and the obvious fact that time is also running fast against the petitioners, we pray my Lord to act timeously in appointing a replacement so that we will get a hearing notice and continue with the petition, in the interest of justice,” the letter stated.
It would be recalled that Justice Bulkachuwa said her decision to recuse herself was on personal reasons.
Meanwhile, the Tribunal, in its ruling, dismissed Atiku and PDP’s application seeking Bulkachuwa’s disqualification from participating in the hearing of the petition for lacking in merit.
According to the ruling, delivered by Justice Peter Olabisi Igeh, the applicants failed to show that Justice Bulkachuwa will be biased in determining their petition as chairman of the Tribunal.
Justice Igeh said, Justice Bulkachuwa, being the wife and mother of two prominent members of the All Progressive Congress (APC), the third respondent in the petition cannot make her bias as they are not parties in the petition.
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He said: “From the prayers of the petitioners and grounds which the application was found, she is not been accused of been bias but that there is likelihood of bias because her husband and son are members of the APC, the third respondent, which victory in the election is being challenged before the Tribunal.”
Justice Igeh held that the statement made by Bulkachuwa in her inaugural speech that elections are held every four years and no matter how well conducted, there must be a complaint, cannot be said to be a signal any likelihood of bias.
Consequently, the application of the petitioners was dismissed for lacking in merit.
Atiku and PDP claimed that Justice Bulkachuwa is a wife to Hon. Adamu Mohammed Bulkachuwa who is a senator-elect on the platform of the APC in Bauchi State.
Dr. Uzoukwu told the panel that the husband to the presiding Justice of the tribunal (Bulkachwa) is: “A senator-elect and when inaugurated in the second week of June, will become a member of the National Convention of the APC, which is the highest authority of the party.”
The petitioners’ counsel told the Tribunal that Justice Bulkachuwa is the biological mother of one Aliyu Haidar Abubakar, a prominent card-carrying member of the APC and a gubernatorial aspirant in his home state at the last general elections.
Justice Bulkachuwa, he said is the spouse of Adamu Mohammed Bulkachuwa, a stakeholder in the APC and may not be able to give acceptable judgment in the petition.
Atiku and his party claimed that Justice Bulkachuwa is closely related to her husband that she cannot fairly hear and determine their petition without eliciting the suspicion and anxiety of all right-thinking persons that she will not be biased against them.
They, therefore, prayed for an order that Bulkachuwa should recuse or disqualify herself from further sitting or participating in the proceedings in their petition and be replaced by another Justice to sit in her place to hear and determine their petition in the interest of Justice.
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