To beat the constitutional two weeks deadline for appeal to the Supreme Court, the Presidential Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has finally appealed to the Supreme Court against the Appeal Court ruling on his case against incumbent Muhammadu Buhari.
The Appeal Court, which doubles as the Presidential Election tribunal, has recently ruled that the election of Muhammadu Buhari was valid after Atiku dragged him to court questioning his victory. Joined in the suit was the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the All Progressives Congress, APC. Atiku had rejected the ruling insisting that he won the election. He said he will head to the supreme court.
Atiku himself was not present at the Tribunal. He was said to have been at Dubai monitoring issues. This appeared to have been confirmed when, after the elections, prominent PDP stalwarts were reported to have been traveling to Dubai for consultations on the way forward.
Some prominent party members were said to have nursed the idea of dumping the party, a situation that resulted from their loss of faith on the Nigerian Judiciary and the need to save their political career. In between, three of the Appeal Court Judges who handled the election petition were said to have been elevated to the Supreme Court, though the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mohammed Tanko, has reiterated his statement that the Judiciary is independent and not an appendage of the Executive. He, however, pleaded for the increased financing of the Nigerian Judicial system.
Tanko has the responsibility of choosing the Supreme Court Judges to handle the Appeal.
Atiku, however, has recently thanked Nigerians for their support and at the same time saying that everyone will get the reward of his or her actions.
Initial hiccups towards the appeal came with the Appeal court delaying in handing over the ruling to the appellants for the appeal. When PDP raised the issue, they said that there were typographical errors in the judgment which they needed to correct before handing it over.
The Supreme Court will mark the end of all appeals.
