Vice President Atiku Abubakar has asked the Presidential Election Tribunal to annul the April 21 Elections and to order fresh presidential elections due to several anomalies including unlawful exclusion of candidates, non-compliance with the electoral law, corrupt practices, and arbitrary allocation of votes by INEC to the 25 presidential contenders in the election.

He is also asking the Tribunal to recommend INEC Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu and his State Electoral Commissioners for criminal prosecution by the Attorney General for bungling the election, and to be further prohibited from participating in the conduct of a fresh election which the Tribunal may order.

The 41-page petition was put together by a team of Senior advocates led by foremost constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, and including Prof. A.B Kasunmu, Alhaji Abdulahi Ibrahim, Prof. Itse Sagay, Rickey Tarfa, Chief Adeniyi Akintola, Chief Emeka Ngige, Adeniji Oyeyipo, Chief Titus Ashaolu, Kemi Pinheiro, and Mike Aondoakaa all Senior Advocates, and a host of other experienced advocates.

Vice President Atiku contends in the petition that Gov. Umar Yar’Adua was not validly elected, as announced by INEC, and that his purported election is therefore void.

One of the grounds on which he based his application is that April 21 election did not comply with the electoral law.

On this score, he put forward several actions taken by INEC which were against the law, including lack of final voters list, election that did not hold at the same time and day, arbitrary changing of the time of voting by INEC, discouragement and disenfranchisement of eligible voters who turned up to vote, using of ballot papers without serial numbers, or counterfoils, thus making it difficult for INEC to trace or audit used and unused ballot papers issued.

He also wants the Tribunal to invalidate or annul the election because of the corruption that was visited on it by the PDP and the INEC. He gave a state by state evidence of corrupt practices pepetrated by INEC and its officials including ballot stuffing, multiple voting, ballot box snatching, intimidation, over-voting, inflation and falsification of votes, bribery, under-age voting, under supply of voting materials, threats, beatings, and killings.

Atiku’s legal team submitted tomes of evidence in form of video clips, photographs, international and local observers’ reports, as well as media reports of the elections, to back its case.

On unlawful exclusion, the Vice President accused INEC of excluding his name, even after making him undergo screening and verification exercise, by going ahead to publish the names of other candidates, and by declaring at various for a that Atiku was disqualified.

He stated that even when a lawful order was made by a competent court, INEC insisted that the only court it would obey on the matter was the Supreme Court. And when the Supreme Court eventually gave the order, did not publish his name as a candidate, while the Inspector General of Police promptly issued an order which was enforced by law enforcement agencies prohibiting campaign and public meetings until after the date of the PresidentialElection.