Presidential Election Petition: Tribunal grants Atiku, PDP authorization to serve Buhari, APC through substituted means

By Emmanuel Chukwukamunene

Atiku Abubakar

Presidential election petition tribunal has granted a request by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, to serve President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress with copies of the petition challenging the February 23 elections through substituted means.

A three-member panel of the tribunal, led by Appeal Court justice, Abdul Aboki, granted the request on Wednesday, following an application by the PDP through its lead counsel, Chris Uche.

Mr Uche and his team of lawyers had approached the tribunal with their petition after analysing the items used by the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) to reach the conclusions announced following the February 23 election.

Mr Abubakar had rejected the results and asked the tribunal for permission to access the items used for collation of the same by INEC.

After the request to analyse the election materials was granted, Mr Abubakar said his team of lawyers found that he had defeated Mr Buhari with over 1.6 million votes.

In the fresh ex-parte application on Wednesday, Mr Uche said they had written in a petition filed at the tribunal on March 25, a request to allow the PDP serve Mr Buhari and his party through substituted means.

Mr Uche said the reason for their application was because the petitioner has not been able to serve the respondents with their petition.

According to the application, the PDP also asked for permission to serve the APC through any of its senior officers at the secretariat of the party, located off Ademola Adetokumbo crescent, Abuja.

Mr Aboki ruled that it was in the interest of justice for the application to be granted.