The Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate in the February 23 election, Atiku Abubakar, have formally filed their 66 grounds of appeal against the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal at the Supreme Court.
Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN) a senior lawyer in the legal team of Atiku and PDP, disclosed that the appeal was predicated on 66 grounds, for which they believed justices of the tribunal erred in their verdict on Atiku and PDP’s petition against the election of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The five-member panel led by Justice Mohammed Garba had in its judgment delivered on Sept. 11, dismissed the petition filed by Atiku and PDP for being incompetent and lacking in merit.
The panel in dismissing the petition held that Atiku and PDP were unable to substantiate their allegations that the election was rigged in favour of Buhari and the APC.
They further held that the petitioners did not produce relevant witnesses to convince them that Buhari did not possess necessary educational qualification for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Alhough Ozekhome did not list any of the 66 grounds on which the appeal was predicated.
The appeal is centered on issues bordering around the qualification of Buhari in the election and the controversial Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC’s) server amongst others.
Among the grounds listed included claims that the judgement of the tribunal was not based on the issues canvassed by the petitioners, especially in relation to the respondent’s academic qualifications.
