Buhari ’eminently’ qualified to contest the 2019 election- Supreme court

Chidi Samuel|The Supreme Court on Friday said that President Muhammadu Buhari is ‘eminently qualified to contest for the 2019 Presidential Elections.

The court while explaining reasons for the dismissal of the appeal filed by Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said both the PDP and its candidate could not prove that Buhari is not educated up to secondary school level.

According to Justice John Okoro, who read the submissions of the CJN, the Apex court said the failure of Atiku to call credible witnesses was fatal to their case as they presented only five witnesses including a star witness who relied on hearsay evidence.

Okoro further noted that Atiku and the PDP failed to prove issues of over voting when it could not produce authentic voters register to substantiate its claim.

On the issue of the INEC server whose alleged content was part of the basis for Atiku’s case, The apex court ruled, “The issue in this appeal is not whether INEC has a website.
“It is not whether INEC posted the results of the presidential election on its website.
“It is whether the www.factsdontlieng.com from which the appellants downloaded the results belonged to INEC.”
According to the CJN, the appellants’ witness 59 admitted that the results which they claimed gave Atiku and PDP victory over Buhari was obtained by an anonymous employee of INEC acting as a whistleblower and uploaded to www.factsdontlieng.com website.
“The website, www.factsdontlieng.com, belonged to the whistleblower and not INEC,” the CJN ruled.
The CJN held that it was fatal to the case of the appellants that they failed to appeal to the specific finding of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that the said website did not belong to INEC but the whistleblower.
“It ought to have dawned on the appellants that the game was up,” Justice Muhammad added.

“Therefore, all the data, analysis and conclusions based on the content of the alleged server are of no moment,” Justice Muhammad also said.

It will be recalled that the supreme court on October 30, 2019, affirmed the election of President Buhari as it dismissed the appeal filed by Atiku and the PDP challenging the verdict of the Presidential Election Petition tribunal.