The PDP flagbearer pointed out that the declared victor was ineligible to participate in the election.
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s nominee for president, has said that the Supreme Court’s decision to reject the PDP’s lawsuit against Kahsim Shettima is not a setback to his pursuit of justice.
Atiku stated that the party’s legal team is “primed to robustly prove that the election of February 25 was fraudulent, did not comply with the constitutional requirements, and did not follow the electoral guidelines of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)” in a statement posted on his official Twitter page on Friday.
The proclaimed victor, the PDP flagbearer continued, was not even eligible to run in the election.
“I have given my all in the fight for democracy and the installation of a new system to promote growth and development in Nigeria, and at this juncture, when our country is at a turning point, I’m not ready to give up.
Part of the statement stated, “We know that sooner or later, our illustrious Justices will issue the verdict that will serve as a proper requiem for these bandits.
The former vice president pleaded with his followers to be patient and behave civilly as the party carefully pursued its legal action before the Presidential Election Tribunal Court.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had filed a lawsuit contesting the alleged double Nomination of Kassim Shettima, the vice president-elect, but the Supreme Court earlier on Friday rejected it.
The PDP lacks the locus standi to bring such a lawsuit, the Apex court agreed on Friday with the lower courts.
When reading the judgment, Justice Adamu Jauro stated that the PDP had interfered and become a distraction since it was an APC internal matter.
Despite the claim being rejected for lack of merit, the PDP was given a two million naira (N2,000,000) judgment.
The Justices additionally declared that the appellant’s (PDP) behavior in portraying the action as “sad” amounted to deceiving the court.
On July 6, 2022, Shettima withdrew his candidacy for the Senate, and he was subsequently replaced. Since he was no longer running for the Senate at this time, his role as vice president did not violate the prohibition on multiple nominations.
The Supreme Court Justices reminded them that they reached the judgement as of that time and are well aware of the specifics of the case of Uche Nwosu, which the PDP relied on.
In his situation, Uche Nwosu received nominations from two political parties for various posts. They said that the PDP’s lawsuit was doomed to fail from the trial court all the way up to the Supreme Court.
The Justices went on to say that the PDP’s use of social media to construct a trap for the Supreme Court in order to blackmail it was unpleasant, calling the situation sad and uncalled for.
The judges hold that a political party has no authority to contest another party’s activity or an INEC decision regarding another party.
They also said that a person must be both a member of the party and a candidate for the post in question in order to have locus standi to contest the nomination process of a political party.
The court ruled that the PDP must watch from a distance, notwithstanding its protestations over how the APC conducted its primary polls and chose its nominee.
They also brought up the situation in 1999, when Atiku Abubakar was nominated for governor but then switched to running as Olusegun Obasanjo‘s running mate.
In such situation, the Governorship Nomination was taken up by Atiku’s running partner, Boni Haruna. When INEC intended to hold new elections, the party fought it all the way to the Supreme Court.
What has changed since 1999, the court pointedly questioned the opposing party.
