Atiku Set For Tribunal, Inaugurates Legal Team
Still seething over alleged irregularities and massive rigging that robbed him of victory in the February 23 presidential poll, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar must gird his loins for an epic legal duel.
With all plaintiffs who have embarked on this endeavour drawing blank since 1979, legal practitioners insist that Abubakar must be ready to provide such incontrovertible, undisputable evidence to buttress his claims, as the journey is fraught with tight legal traps.
Except he changes his mind, Abubakar has less than three weeks to file a petition against President-elect Muhammadu Buhari, his All Progressives Congress (APC), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for declaring Buhari winner of the February 23 presidential poll.
The urgency, precision and challenges of providing watertight oral, documentary and electronic evidence to upturn election results, lawyers said, makes election petition a Herculean task.
Yesterday, the former Vice President after rejecting the result of the poll citing several malpractices, inaugurated his legal team to challenge the result of the presidential election. The team is headed by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN.
Last Thursday, Abubakar listed the malpractices to include the use of the military to perfect voter intimidation and suppression in PDP strongholds, connivance of INEC officials, security agents and the ruling party to manufacture bogus figures and outright falsification of the returns from the polling units.
Consequent upon all these, he gave notice that he would use all available legitimate means to challenge the result of the election.
His meeting with members of the National Peace Committee Thursday night prompted concerns in some quarters that he may have been prevailed upon to abandon litigation.
But all that came to naught after he declared yesterday: “I have just inaugurated my legal team and charged them with the responsibility of ensuring that our stolen mandate is retrieved.”
“I am encouraged by the presence of fearless men and women of the Bench. The judiciary, which had in the past discharged itself ably is once again being called upon to deliver judgment on this matter that will be untainted by lucre and unbowed by the threat of immoral power,” he added
Abubakar assured Nigerians that sooner than later, these noble dispensers of justice will give a judgment that will represent a historic denunciation of electoral fraud and mandate.
Relatedly, as the onslaught on his aides and family members continue, Abubakar has assured Nigerians that under no circumstance will he mortgage the mandate they freely gave him on February 23, 2019.