Buhari drags Yar’Adua to Supreme Court

Lanre Adewole, Abuja - 03.03.2008

The presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Muhammadu Buhari, has asked the Supreme Court to set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal upholding President Umaru Yar’Adua’s election, saying that the five justices that heard his petition against the president’s election erred in law.

In his notice of appeal against last Tuesday’s judgment which affirmed the outcome of the April 21presidential election, Buhari claimed that the appeal court panel relied on non-existent provision of the Electoral Act in dismissing his petition.

In the appeal filed on his behalf by his lead counsel, Chief Mike Ahamba (SAN), Buhari is challenging the entire decision of the tribunal which held that the evidence he adduced was not enough to invalidate the poll or affect the outcome of the election substantially.

The ANPP presidential candidate, in his notice of appeal filed on Friday, claimed that the justices of the Court of Appeal erred in law when they held that there was a burden of proof on the petitioner by virtue of Section 146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2006 to prove that the established non-compliance affected the result of the election when there was no such provision in the said section.

In the particulars of error, Buhari averred that the express provision of Section 146 (1) is for the appropriate party to show that the non-compliance did not substantially affect the result of the election and not that the non-compliance affected the result of the election.

The appellant also contended that his argument was that the election was invalid but the court finding was that he failed to establish substantial non-compliance, adding that the burden of proof placed on him by the court was inconsistent with the substance of his complaint before the court.

Buhari further maintained that the court misplaced the onus of proof on a fundamental issue in the petition and that the placement of the onus on him to establish that the non compliance affected the result of the election is inconsistent with the decision of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in Swem versus Dzungwe (1996) Nigeria Weekly Law Report (NWLR) 279.

In his second ground of appeal, he submitted that the justices erred in law when they unanimously held that he did not provide enough evidence that could affect the result of the election consequent upon which they dismissed the petition.