The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, is at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) in Abuja to reportedly submit his final written address for adoption.
Atiku is accompanied by the Acting Chairman of the party, Umar Damagum, among other party chieftains.
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Recall that Atiku had asked the Tribunal to uphold the admittance of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that he won 21 states in the disputed February 25 presidential election.
Atiku made the request in his final written address filed on July 20, by their lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche SAN, in support of his joint petition with the PDP seeking the nullification of Bola Tinubu’s victory at the presidential poll.
The petitioners maintained that INEC’s assertion that Atiku won in 21 states was neither disputed, retracted, debunked nor claimed to be an error throughout the proceedings.
INEC, according to Atiku, had, in its reply in April, asserted that he “won in 21 states of the federation in the last presidential poll, but only 12 states were announced for the PDP during the declaration of results on March 1, this year.”
According to Atiku, the states that the electoral umpire said were won by him are Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Borno, Delta, Ekiti, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Osun, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.
But Atiku and the PDP disagreed with INEC, alleging that the electoral umpire, besides failing to abide by its regulations and guidelines on the conduct of the 2023 general elections, rigged the process to favour Tinubu and the APC.
They are therefore asking the court to void Tinubu’s election, declare them winner or, in the alternative, conduct a fresh election that would exclude Tinubu.