President Buhari and his Vice Osinbajo receive Certificate of Return from INEC Chairman in Abuja on 27th Feb 2019Three other presidential candidates whose combined total votes in the February 23 Presidential election in Nigeria were below 10,000, have gone to the Presidential Election petition Tribunal to challenge the re-election of Present Muhammadu Buhari.
The Presidential candidates are that of the Hope Democratic Party (HDP,) Chief Ambrose Owuru; Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM,) Aminchi Habu and Coalition for Change (C4C,) Geff Chizee Ojinka,. They asked the tribunal to invoke its powers and quash the declaration of President Buhari as the bonafide winner of the 2019 presidential election.
In their separate petitions, they alleged that the election was characterised by manifest irregularities, adding that the Electoral Act was not substantially complied with by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
HDP’s Chief Ambrose Owuru, whose petition marked as CA/ PEPC/001/2019, cited the APC and the INEC as Respondents. His otal votes in the presidential election was 1,663.
Also, PDM’s Habu, in another petition registered as CA/PEPC/004/2019, equally challenged the outcome of the presidential poll.
Similarly, in its own petition marked CA/PEPC/003/2019, C4C and its presidential candidate, Ojinka, also urged the tribunal to nullify President Buhari’s election.
The C4C garnered a total of 2,391 votes at the presidential poll and cited the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, as the 2nd Respondent in its case.
The Petitioners contend that the election was vitiated by substantial non compliance with mandatory statutory provisions, which irregularity substantially affected the election such that the 1st Respondent was not entitled to be returned as the Winner of the Presidential election.
