Flaws in Atiku’s petition which might cost him presidency detected
kogiflame.com
The bid by the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to upturn to declaration of President Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the February 23 presidential election might be hard to come by.
This is as a result of the irregularities noticed in the petition filed by Atiku before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
Atiku at hinged his petition on figures he said he obtained from the server of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which he claimed showed he won Buhari by over 1.6 million votes.
Checks by PREMIUM TIMES however show that the figures he presented have many flaws.
In many of the state, the addition of his votes and that of Buhari’s APC accounted for all the total number of accredited voters in the state.
This meant that asides Buhari and Atiku, none of the other 71 presidential candidates had votes for them.
Some states also had the total number of votes alloted to the two candidates was more than the total accredited votes. This amounts to a case of over voting.
The states in this category include Abia, Bauchi and Cross River.
In Adamawa State, Atiku claimed he scored a total of 646,080, while he said Buhari scored 161,600. The addition of the votes of both candidates amounts to the total accredited votes in the state which is 815,680.
The same also happened in Akwa Ibom State. According to Atiku, he scored 587,431 votes ahead of Mr Buhari’s 337,939. This also accounted for the total number of accredited voters which stood at 925,370.
Atiku also claimed that of the 965,940 accredited voters in Enugu state, he scored 698,119 as against 267,821 for Buhari.
Sokoto State all shared their votes, 1,169,303 voters between Atiku, 552,172 and President Buhari, 617,131.
The PDP candidate also said he scored 442,380 votes in Taraba, while the President scored 188,389. The total of both votes likewise gives the total accredited votes of 630,769.
The pattern played out in Yobe where the total accredited votes of 750,745 gave Atiku and Buhari 443,904 and 306,841 votes respectively.
Same as Zamfara with votes of 379,022 and 413,774 respectively for Atiku and Buhari out of a total accredited voters of 792,796.
There were also cases of over-voting in some states as presented in the petition Atiku submitted before the tribunal. In these states, the total number of votes allocated to Atiku and Buhari alone exceeded the total number of accredited voters.
Abia, had 853,050 “accredited voters (actual)” but had the sum of the votes allotted to Atiku and Buhari alone, outshoot the accredited voters by 10,000.
According to the results, Atiku scored 664,659 while Mr Buhari scored 198,391 votes.
It is a similar case in Bauchi, where the total for Atiku and Buhari’s purported votes outnumber total accredited voters by 287 votes.
Atiku claims 187,668 votes a far cry from 854,037 the document said Buhari obtained. The summation comes to 1,041,705 while the document gives the total accredited voters as 1,041,418.
In Cross River, the document shows that votes obtained by the two leading candidates amount to 691,640 which is higher than the 690,890 accredited voters’ figure by a total of 750 votes.
PREMIUM TIMES
