Nigeria’s President-elect, Ahmed Tinubu has justified the loss of the Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party PDP, Atiku Abubakar at the 2023 presidential election saying, the former Vice President is a serial loser and an unstable politician.
Tinubu stated this in his defence to the petition filed against him at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja by Atiku and PDP to challenge his declaration as Nigeria’s President-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC.
In the defence filed by a foremost legal luminary, Mr. Wole Oladapo Olanipekun SAN along with 34 other Senior Advocate of Nigeria Senior Advocates of Nigeria SANS on his behalf, Tinubu asserted that it was not a surprise or by accident that, the Nigerians rejected the 1st petitioner ( Atiku) at the polls held on the 25th February, 2023.
The former Lagos State Governor argued that Atiku had since 1993 consistently contested and lost elections both at the primary and general election.
Tinubu who stood for the election and won on the All Progressives Congress APC’S platform traced the history of Atiku’s loses in the presidential election to 1993 when he reportedly lost the Social Democratic Party (SDP) primary election to the late Chief M.K.O Abiola in 2007, and lost the presidential
election to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as well as Good luck Jonathan and President Muhammadu Buhari respectively.
In his notice of reply to the Tribunal, Tinubu claimed to have always been the most consistent politician, who has not shifted political tendency and alignment while he 1st petitioner (Atiku) has
consistently crisscrossed different political parties of Nigeria,
Tinubu claimed that while he had always
carried his supporters along and increased his political followership, Atiku has lost most of his followers in the process of moving from
one political party to the other.
In the 2023 general election, the President elect alleged that the emergence of Atiku as the presidential candidate of the 2nd petitioner (PDP) led to irreconcilable hostilities within the ranks of the party causing the emergence of a group of Governors known all over the country as the G-5 Governors.
He asserted that the petition by Atiku and PDP against him is a gross abuse of court process adding that the petitioners have no right to present the petition, having peremptorily filed an Originating Summons at the Supreme Court on 28th February,
2023, praying the Apex Court to assume original jurisdiction on the same subject of their petition, and asking the court to nullify the entire presidential election.
He therefore asked that the petition be dismissed for lacking in merit, sincerity and for also being frivolous, vexatious, highly misconceived, disclosing no reasonable cause of action and for constituting a crass abuse of the judicial process.
Voice of Nigeria reports that the petitioners are querying the result of elections in all the States where they won the election, including but not limited to Adamawa, Bauchi, Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Gombe, Yobe, Sokoto, Osun, Kebbi and Katsina States, without making themselves co-respondents to the petition; whereas, under section 133(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022, a party whose election is being challenged shall be made a respondent.
N.O
