Nigeria’s Supreme Court nails Atiku’s presidential dream, affirms Buhari’s poll victory

With an air of finality, Nigeria’s Supreme Court on Wednesday thrown out the appeal filed by the People’s Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, challenging the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in the February 2019 poll.

Leading a six-member panel of justices, Chief Justice Tanko Muhammad, handed down a terse, three-sentence unanimous judgment in favour of Buhari.

Tanko said he and members of the panel had read all the documents and exhibits filed in the case for two weeks and found the appeal to be “lacking in merit’’.

He announced that the reasons for the apex court’s decision would be made known at a later date.

Meanwhile, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has hailed Supreme Court’s judgment and for the nation’s judiciary for “standing firm in the face of the PDP and Atiku’s subterfuge.’’

“We congratulate Nigerians, the President, Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, party leaders, members and supporters on the Supreme Court’s verdict.

“Following the earlier judgment of the 2019 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal which dismissed in its entirety the PDP and Atiku’s petition, the Apex Court was apt in dismissing the appeal for lacking merit.

“The Party hails the Judiciary for standing firm in the face of the PDP and Atiku’s subterfuge and for siding with the Nigerian electorate who through their votes decided to do away with PDP’s ignominious past and re-elect the President Buhari-led APC administration which has ushered in a new era of progressive growth for our country,’’ the party said in a statement by its spokesman, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu.

In its reaction, the People’s Democratic Party, said though the Supreme Court had dismissed the appeal of the party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, against the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari, the “final judgment comes from God Almighty’’.

Nigeria, it said, was in such “an untidy state that only God can bail her out’’

“Nigerians should remain resolute in their prayers to God… the country is in such “an untidy state that only God can bail” her out,’’ the PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus, said in a statement by his media aide, Ike Abonyi.