Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 presidential election, has petitioned the
Court of Appeal over what he called a deliberate ploy, to truncate the
constitutional timeline of the presidential election petition before the
Tribunal.
This comes 11 days after the President of the Court of
Appeal and erstwhile Chairperson of the 2019 Presidential Election Petition
Tribunal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, disqualified herself from the Tribunal
following the petition of the PDP and Atiku/Obi legal team.
The PDP and Abubakar had based their application, among
other things, on the ground that Bulkachuwa is the wife of Adamu Bulkachuwa, a
prominent card-carrying member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and
Senator-elect for Bauchi north senatorial district, which is a political party
involved in the suit.
Atiku has now in a letter through his counsel dated May 31,
2019, urged the President of the Court of Appeal to appoint a replacement
forthwith.
According to him, the Tribunal has a timeline to prosecute
the petitions, adding that 76 days have already been expended out of the 180
days allowed by law, as seen in Section 134 (2) and (3) of the Electoral Act
(2010 as amended).
The petition stated: “I am one (Silas Joseph) of the Counsel
in the Legal Team prosecuting the above Petition on behalf of the Petitioners.
“I have the authority of the Lead Counsel, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu
(SAN) to write this letter. My Lord will recall that on 22nd May 2019, the
above mentioned Petition came up for a motion requesting that my Lord to recuse
herself from further presiding or participating in this Petition. At the end of
the proceedings, my Lord graciously recused herself on personal grounds and
promised to appoint anotherJustice to continue with the Petition.”
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