The Congress for
Progressive Change (CPC), yesterday, filed a petition at the
presidential election tribunal to challenge the result of the April 19
presidential election, alleging irregularities and noncompliance with
the 2010 electoral act.
The party is
contesting the result of the election in about 20 states of the
federation, cutting across the six geopolitical zones.
Though a copy of
the petition was not made available to reporters, the lead counsel to
the CPC, Ebun Sofunbe, said the election was marred by substantial
noncompliant with the Electoral Act 2010.
The party will be calling 151 witnesses to prove its case.
The CPC
presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, told journalists shortly
after casting his vote in Dura, Katsina State that thumb-printed ballot
papers were used in several states.
“We are concerned
about the amount of election voting cards that are being thumb-printed
elsewhere and were taken to some of the voting centres. There were
reports of planes delivering what is suspected to be presidential
voting cards already thumb printed in several states,” said Nigeria’s
former head of state.
The national
chairperson of the CPC, Tony Momoh, yesterday said the party was
challenging the results of the 2011 presidential election that returned
President Goodluck Jonathan to show the world that the election was
fundamentally flawed.
Speaking after the
party filed its petition at the presidential election tribunal, Mr
Momoh noted that the party is asking the tribunal to cancel results in
over 20 states of the federation, mostly in the South-South,
South-East, some parts of the North and the South-West.
“We are challenging
the results in all the states, all of which are recorded in the
petition paper,” he said. “First of all, the elections were flawed,
marred by malpractices, also multiple voting and lots of other grounds.
Then we believe that for elections to be free, fair and transparent,
they should not only be free, fair and transparent, but be seen to be
free, fair and transparent.”
Seeking justice
Mr Momoh said that the party was seeking that the results be subjected to forensic test to authenticate them.
The CPC had last
Friday filed an application before the national election tribunal
sitting at the Court of Appeal, Abuja seeking to compel the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) and all its resident electoral
commissioners to release certain documents and materials to be used for
its petition.
Joined as
defendants in the suit were the INEC chief, Attahiru Jega; Nigeria’s
president, Goodluck Jonathan; his vice, Namadi Sambo; the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) and the resident electoral commissioners for the
36 states including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The party also
urged its members to continue to support it, saying it was in court to
expose alleged malpractices that attended the election.
In a statement last
night by its national spokesman, Rotimi Fashakin, the party said the
court action was a commencement of the move to demolish official lies
allegedly erected to subvert the will of Nigerians.
“Without any iota
of doubt, the decision to seek judicial redress is not for anything but
the establishment of the truth and, inexorably, to enrich the nation’s
jurisprudence,” he said. “We therefore call on our people who have,
through undiminished thirst, craved for social justice within this
nation space to show their unalloyed support for this noble objective.
“A cursory perusal of available electoral returns shows that massive
allocation of votes was done in favour of the incumbent to satisfy the
constitutional provisions of return as elected. The formal forensic
examination of the ballot papers shall further reveal a most sordid
electoral fraud ever known to man.”
