The petition tribunal 8 March dismissed the petitions filed by the two for faili ng to prove their claims that the election was massively flawed and marred with irregularities.
The tribunal, headed by Justice James Ogenyi Ogebe who has since ascended the be nch of the Supreme Court, also held that the petitioners failed to show how the Independent National Electoral Commission's (INEC) non-compliance with the Electo r al Act 2006 substantially affected the results of the presidential polls.
Dissatisfied with the Tribunal's reasoning, Buhari within 48 hours of the decisi on, filed a notice of appeal at the apex court, raising eight grounds why the Supreme Court should set aside the tribunal's verdict.
Determined not to leave anything to chance, Buhari raised 20 fresh grounds to buttress his claim that the learned Justices of the Court of Appeal erred in law w h en they held that there was a burden of proof on the petitioner by virtue of Sec t ion 146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2006 to prove that the alleged non-compliance affected the result of the election when there is no such provision in the said section.
In the appeal filed by Abubakar 14 March, the former Vice President challenged the decision of the Tribunal to uphold the election of Yar'Adua on grounds that he (Abubakar) did not adduce any shred of evidence to prove his claim that the election was a ruse.
In a notice of appeal filed by his legal team, Atiku asked the apex court to set aside the judgment of the tribunal on 38 grounds.
The grounds and particulars of error include the following: - that the lower court erred in judgment when it held that Yar'Adua scored a total of 24,638,063 to h is 2,637,848 votes "without evaluating or resolving the evidence as to whether t h ose votes were allocated as alleged by the Petitioners in Paragraph 8 of the petition or actually scored as pleaded in Paragraph 9 of the 1st and 2nd Respondents 'Reply and Paragraph 2 of the 4th - 808th Respondents' Reply respectively."
The former vice president is contending that "there were at least three different versions of the result produced by the INEC and tendered by the Petitioners, which were conflicting."
Lagos - 29/04/2008
Panapress
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