UNDERSTANDING ATIKU ABUBAKAR'S FINAL WRITTEN ADDRESS TO NIGERIA'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION PETITION TRIBUNAL

It is no longer news that the presidential candidate of the PDP in the just concluded 2019 elections, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has been at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) challenging the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari who was declared winner of the elections by a margin of over 3 million votes.

On the 14th of August 2019, Atiku submitted his final address to the tribunal which will be adopted by the tribunal during their next sitting which has been set for the 21st of August, 2019. In his final address, Atiku, through his 35-man legal team led by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu which consists of 20 senior advocates of Nigeria, lays out five (5) issues for the tribunal to determine. I paraphrase them below:
1.   Whether at the time of the election, Mr Buhari was unqualified to be in the contest at all.
2.   Whether Mr Buhari submitted to INEC an affidavit containing false information of a serious nature, which aided his qualification to contest the election at the time.
3.   Whether from the pleadings and evidence they have made before the tribunal, it was established that Mr Buhari indeed won the election by the majority of lawful votes cast.
4.   Whether the presidential election conducted by INEC on the 23rd of February, 2019 was invalid by reason of corrupt practices.
5.   Whether the presidential election conducted by INEC on the 23rd of February, 2019 was invalid by reason of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended), and the Electoral Guidelines 2019 and Manuals issued for the conduct of elections.

Their argument in issues numbers 1 & 2 is that Buhari did not possess either the First School Leaving or West African School Certificates which he claimed to have in his form CF001 which he submitted to INEC in order to secure his qualification to contest for the election. They submit that Buhari was not qualified to contest in the election because he failed to satisfy the mandatory requirement of section 131 (d) of the 1999 constitution which states that "A person shall be qualified for election to the office of president if he has been educated up to at least School Certificate level or its equivalent". 
On issue number 3, they submit that INEC wrongly and unlawfully credited Buhari with votes which were not valid or lawful at various stages of the election, from polling units to state collation centers, resulting in Buhari being wrongly returned elected when he in fact didn't score majority of lawful votes cast. They further claimed that based on analysis done and the deduction of the said invalid votes, PDP's Atiku polled 9,426,082 votes while APC's Buhari polled 9,203,750 votes. But according to INEC's official results, however, PDP's Atiku actually polled 11,262,978 while APC's Buhari polled 15,191,847 votes to be declared winner of the election. With the new numbers claimed by Atiku's team, he is said to have won Buhari with a margin of 222,332 votes.
On issues numbers 4 & 5, however, Atiku goes ahead to also claim that Mr Buhari's election is invalid by reason of corrupt practices averred to in their petition to the tribunal including compromised printing/production of election materials, manipulation/misuse of state resources, manipulation of security agencies and militarization of the election, manipulation of card readers, massive multiple thumb-printing of ballot papers, etc.
In conclusion, they urged the Honorable Court to uphold their petition and grant all reliefs sought therein.  See the full final address by Atiku's team here.
At the last hearing held on the 1st of August, 2019, the Tribunal's head, Justice Mohammed Garba fixed Wednesday, 21st August, 2019 for adoption of final addresses by all parties involved in the petition.