Atiku is confused - Yar’Adua; Asks tribunal to dismiss his petition

Lanre Adewole, Abuja - 08.01.2008

President Umaru Yar’Adua has said that the candidate of the Action Congress (AC) in the April 21, 2007 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and his running mate, Senator Ben Obi, did not know what they wanted on the outcome of the poll.

He asked the presidential election petition tribunal sitting in Abuja to dismiss their petition challenging his victory. The president’s claim was contained in his final address to the tribunal, submitted on his behalf by his counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN).

The petitioners asked the tribunal to nullify the election and order a fresh poll on the grounds that the election was massively rigged in favour of Alhaji Yar’Adua of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

President Yar’Adua said Alhaji Atiku’s allegation was a mere posturing, with no evidence to support the claim that the elections were rigged. According to the president, “on a critical look at the petition, one would readily come to the conclusion that it is most confusing and that the petitioners themselves do not know or appreciate what they want, because at one breath, they lay claim to the unproven allegation that no election took place at all and on another breath, allege election rigging, over-voting, and ballot stuffing.”

Accusing Atiku of deliberate waste of the time of the court, President Yar’Adua described the petition as frivolous, having disclosed no cause of action, reasonable or otherwise. He also faulted the grounds upon which the petition was filed.

“The grounds on which the petition is based are contradictory, self-defeating, at cross purposes, inconsistent, divergent and mutually exclusive,” he said. Yar’Adua added that many of the allegations in the petition were criminal in nature and should be proved beyond reasonable doubt, which he insisted the petitioners had not done.