The Supreme Court has given reasons for dismissing the appeal by Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenging the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in the February 23 presidential election.
The apex court in its reasons on the 66-grounds of the Sept. 23 appeal which Atiku and PDP reduced to five issues following the decision of the Presidential Election Petitions which on September 11 dismissed their petition on the election.
The seven-member panel held that Section 31(8) of the Nigerian Constitution, 1999 held “education up to secondary school level is sufficient without actual possession of the certificate.”
In a lead judgement by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad read by Justice Inyang Okoro on Friday, the apex court said based on on Cambridge, WAEC certificates and group photograph of Katsina Provincial Secondary School tendered by Buhari, “I am satisfied to hold that the court below was right to rely on the certificates to hold that the second respondent (Buhari) was eminently qualified.”
The panel held that the qualifications for office could be any alternative to school certificate, including 10 years experience in public service and attendance of professional training, adding that the use of ‘or’ instead of ‘and’ in Section 31(8) is disjunctive rather than conjunctive, “which means each can stand on its own.”
In the unanimous decision, the apex court also ruled that Atiku and the PDP failed to prove the allegation of false information to INEC form CF001 against Buhari being criminal in nature.
They also upheld the decision of the tribunal that the bearer of the name ‘Mohammed’ as contained in the certificates tendered at the tribunal and ‘Muhammadu’ is same person Pres. Buhari since no other person has claimed the documents.
The panel ruled that Atiku and PDP failed to prove that the website tendered through the Kenyan ICT expert, David Ayu Njorgu: www.factsdontlie.com belongs to INEC.
Justices Bode Rhodes-Vivour, Olukayode Ariwoole, Inyang Okoro, Amiru Sanusi, Ejembi Eko and Uwani Abba-Aji agreed with the verdict of the CJN.
However, Justice Eko observed that he found INEC’s denial of the existence of a server as “preposterous” based on the provisions of sections 34 and 71 of the Electoral Act, 2010 which mandates it to upload election results to a central server.
The PDP lawyers and members were all absent at the ruling.
Details later…
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