I won April polls, Yar'Adua tells tribunal - Vanguard

PRESIDENT Umaru Yar’Adua, yesterday, asked the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja to dismiss two major petitions challenging his emergence as the winner of the April 21 presidential poll, saying his electoral victory was not only overwhelming but also landslide.

The two petitions are those filed by former Head of State, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who contested the presidential poll on the platform of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), and that of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who contested on the platform of the Action Congress (AC).

Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Chief Oluwole Olanipekun (SAN), led a team of legal practitioners to push Yar’Adua’s case before the tribunal.

He tendered only the final presidential election results officially released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) where President Yar'Adua was credited with 24,638,063 to beat 24 other contenders.

Maj.-Gen Buhari came second with 6,605,299 while his Action Congress (AC) counterpart, ex-Vice President Abubakar, polled 2,637,848 votes.

Buhari and Abubakar through their counsel opposed to the admissibility of the two documents on the grounds that Yar’Adua never pleaded them in his defence.

But Chief Olanipekun cited the cliche of the goose and gander to get the documents into the court’s record.

He told the tribunal that most of the documents admitted by the tribunal from the two petitioners were not pleaded, yet they were admitted in evidence. He urged the tribunal to also extend the gesture enjoyed by both Buhari and Atiku to him.

Chairman of the five-member tribunal, Justice James Ogebe, ruled that in view of the fact that the documents were listed although not pleaded, he would allow them tendered as exhibits “for whatever they are worth.”

Chief Olanipekun who adopted all the statements of the witnesses in support of Yar’Adua’s replies to Atiku and Buhari’s petitions suddenly closed his case.

The entire defence of Yar’Adua to the two major petitions did not last 30 minutes.

He said the strength of his case was not only in the documents tendered before the tribunal but more in the address to be submitted and adopted on January 28, 2008.

Earlier, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had also opened and closed its case yesterday, tendering only the list of polling stations and electoral wards in the 36 states of the Federation.

The commission was represented by a team of lawyers led by Mr Kanu Agabi (SAN).
Both Abubakar and Buhari also objected to the tendering of the exhibits on similar grounds but were overruled.

Besides the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Police also opened and closed their cases yesterday.

Buhari, in his petition, had joined them as respondents including ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo on the grounds that the ex-President abused his powers under the constitution by deploying both the police and soldiers for the purpose of the election.

He had argued that the constitution did not allow him to deploy soldiers and police except during emergencies. Full Story