Tribunal Grants PDP, Atiku Access To Serve Buhari, APC Petition.

Photo: Sahara Reporters

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) has granted the requýest made by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to have their petitions over the result of the February 23 presidential election served on President Muhammadu Buhari by substituted means.

The Justice Abdul Aboki led three-man panel, which granted the request contained in an ex-parte motion, specifically ordered that copies of all the legal processes should be served on Buhari through any senior officer at the national headquarters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja.

Meanwhile, it is more trouble for Buhari as three more presidential candidates have separately filed petitions at the PEPT sitting in Abuja, asking it to void the outcome of the February 23 presidential election.

They include the presidential candidate of the Hope Democratic Party (HDP), Chief Ambrose Owuru, whose petition marked as CA/ PEPC/001/2019 also cited the APC and the INEC as respondents. Owuru secured a total of 1,663 in the presidential election. In another petition that was registered as CA/PEPC/004/2019, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), Pastor Aminchi Habu, equally challenged the outcome of the presidential poll. In its own petition marked CA/PEPC/003/2019, the Coalition For Change (C4C) and its presidential candidate, Geff Chizee Ojinka, also urged the tribunal to nullify Buhari’s election.

The order of the tribunal was sequel to an ex-parte application that was filed by the PDP and Atiku, which was moved by their lawyers led by Chief Chris Uche, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). In the petition marked CA/PEPC/002/2019, the applicants, who listed the INEC, Buhari and the APC as respondents, prayed the tribunal to invalidate the declaration of Buhari as winner of the presidential contest.

The tribunal had earlier ordered the electoral to grant the petitioners, the second and third respondents (Buhari and the APC), access to all the electoral materials that were deployed for the February 23 presidential poll, apart from the smart card reader machines.

While Atiku and PDP maintained that they would need copies of the materials to sustain their allegation that the election was rigged, Buhari and the APC said they would also need the materials to prove that they legitimately won the presidential election.

The INEC had on February 27, declared that Buhari won the presidential contest with 15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest rivalry, Atiku, who it said polled a total of 11,262,978 votes.

However, in their joint petition, Atiku and his party insisted that the data they secured from the INEC’s server revealed that they defeated Buhari with over 1.6million votes.

The petitioners alleged that INEC had at various stages of the presidential election, unlawfully allocated votes to Buhari, saying they would adduce oral and documentary evidence to show that the result of the election as announced by the electoral body did not represent the lawful valid votes cast.

Atiku alleged that in some states, INEC deducted lawful votes that accrued to him, in its bid to ensure that Buhari was returned to office. The petitioners said they would call evidence of statisticians, forensic examiners and fingerprint experts at the hearing of the petition to establish that the scores credited to Buhari were not the product of actual votes validly cast at the polling units.

“The petitioners plead and shall rely on electronic video recordings, newspaper reports, photographs and photographic images of several infractions of the electoral process by the respondents,” they added.

More so, in one of the five grounds of the petition, Atiku and the PDP maintained that Buhari was not qualified to run for the office of the president, contending that he did not possess the constitutional minimum qualification of a school certificate.

The petitioners serialised results that were recorded from each state of the federation in order to prove that the alleged fraudulent allocation of votes to Buhari and the APC took place at the polling units, the ward collating centres, local government collating centres and the state collating centres.

They argued that proper collation and summation of the presidential election results would show that contrary to what INEC declared, Atiku, garnered a total of 18,356,732 votes, ahead of Buhari who they said got a total of 16,741,430 votes.

He said: “The petitioners shall rely on the evidence of statisticians, forensic examiners and other experts, detailing the data analysis on the votes at all levels of collation, from the polling units to the final return.”

“The petitioners state that smart card readers deployed by the first respondent, in addition to accreditation, equally transmitted electronically the results of voting from polling units directly to the server of the first respondent.”

Meanwhile, in their various petitions, the three presidential candidates urged the tribunal to invoke its powers and quash the declaration of Buhari as the bona-fide winner of the 2019 presidential election.

The petitioners separately alleged that the election was characterised by manifest irregularities, adding that the Electoral Act was not substantially complied with by the INEC.



Source: sunnewsonline.com

Just In: Tribunal Cancels Oyetola's Victory, Announces Adeleke Winner of Osun Governorship Election

Following the Osun State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, Ademola Adeleke, candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), has been declared winner of the 2018 governorship election in the state.

At its sitting in Abuja on Friday 22nd March 2019, the tribunal voided the cancellation of elections in seven polling units in the state, therefore holding that Gboyega Oyetola, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was not validly returned.

Reading the ruling on behalf of a three-member panel of judges, Justice Peter Obi held that the returning officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had no powers to cancel the election in the seven polling units on September 22, 2018, which led leading to the rerun election on September 27, 2018.




Source: Sahara Reporters

Woman Commits Suicide over the Death of Her Children in the Collapsed Building

The building collapse in Lagos Island on Wednesday resulted in a mother, who lost her two children in the incident, committing suicide after she received news of the death of the children.

It was learnt that she gave birth to the two children, who were between the ages of six and four, through Caesarean Section (CS).

The woman and her husband live in Gambari area of the Island.

Some residents of the area who narrated the incident said she bought a bottle of insecticide called ‘Sniper’.

“Nobody knew what she wanted to do with the Sniper. But a few minutes later, we saw the bottle beside her where she was sleeping and we found out that she was already dead," a neighbour, who preferred not to be named, said.

Sympathisers thronged their house to condole with the husband and family members.
Meanwhile, a mother, Yetunde, whose son was injured, has been too traumatised by the sight of the boy lying critically on the hospital bed, that she has not sat down for over nine hours.

She was seen moving from one corner of the Lagos Island General Hospital to the other in search of the prescribed drugs and other needs demanded by the doctors.

The boy survived the injuries and his two legs are in Plaster of Paris (POP).

Recollecting the event of the past 24 hours, Yetunde said she was the person who dressed the boy for school. She had already left the house when she received a call that the school, which her son attends, had caved in, leaving many children trapped. She called on well-meaning Nigerians to pray for the speedy recovery of her son.

Culled: Sahara Reporters

Video from the Scene of the Collapsed Building.

Following the awful incident which claimed the lives of many children at Ita faji market, Lagos Island today, a list has been released revealing that 41 pupils have been rescued alive, and presently receiving medical treatment,  while about 100 are reportedly still trapped in the rubble.

Kindly reach out to Lagos Island General Hospital, to donate blood, as they are in need of blood donors to save the lives of the children rescued.

Our prayers go to the families of the children who lost their lives in this horrific incident. We also pray for the speedy recovery of the injured children.

See below for the video of the collapsed building

Video Credit: Instablog

Photos of the Collapsed Building with Children Rescued from the Rubble, Today in Lagos Island

At least eight children have died and many more are feared trapped after a building containing a school collapsed in the Nigerian city of Lagos.

The school, which was on the top floor of the three-storey building in Ita Faji on Lagos Island, had more than 100 pupils, a rescue official told the BBC.

About 40 pupils were pulled out alive, the official said. Rescuers were frantically searching for more.

The cause of the collapse was not immediately clear.

The collapsed building was a residential block containing a number of apartments as well as the school, residents and rescue officials at the scene told the BBC.

Emergency teams pulled several injured pupils from the rubble, but many worried parents at the scene were unable to find their children, while others went to a local hospital to look for theirs.

Ibrahim Farinloye, a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, said the collapse had happened at about 10:00 local time (09:00 GMT).

"It is believed that many people including children are currently trapped in the building," he said.


Culled from BBC