Nigeria’s election runner-up, Atiku Abubakar, files appeal over election challenge

The runner-up in Nigeria’s presidential election in February on Tuesday filed an appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling rejecting a challenge to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s election victory. Opposition parties had claimed various irregularities, from electoral authorities failing to properly upload results and fraud to Tinubu not meeting constitutional requirements to win the presidency.

According to the appeal notice seen by AFP, Atiku Abubakar, the candidate for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), filed the claim on the basis that the earlier judgment had made “a grave miscarriage of justice”. In one of the country’s most tightly contested elections, Tinubu won with 37 percent of the vote in February, beating Abubakar and Labour Party’s Peter Obi to secure the presidency of Africa’s most populous country.

Abubakar said earlier this month that he had instructed his legal team to take the appeal to the Supreme Court, after a five-judge appeals court on Wednesday confirmed Tinubu’s win on September 7. The decision was made after more than 10 hours of hearings broadcast live. The PDP candidate called it “bereft of substantial justice”. The Labour Party’s legal team has also said they planned to file with the Supreme Court.

Since the country’s return to democracy from military rule in 1999, Nigerian elections have often been marred by fraud allegations and usually end up in legal challenges, but the Supreme Court has never overturned a presidential election.

AFP