Atiku Abubakar claims that data from INEC server showed that he defeated President Muhammadu Buhari by 1,615,302 votes

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last general election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has claimed that he defeated President Muhammadu Buhari by 1,615,302 votes.

Punch newspaper reports that Atiku made the claim in a petition he and his party filed before the presidential election tribunal.

The  newspaper quoted the petitioners as saying that data from the server of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) shows the true and correct results from state to state computation.

In the 139-page document, they said Atiku garnered a total of 18,356,732 votes to defeat Buhari, who reportedly polled 16,741,430 votes.

They said the results were the total votes scored by the candidates in 35 states and the federal capital territory (FCT), Abuja, since there was no report on the sever showing results from Rivers state as of February 25, 2019.

According to the result declared by INEC from the 36 states and the FCT, Buhari polled 15,191,847, while Atiku came second with 11,262,978 votes.

Atiku had rejected the result, alleging widespread irregularities. He had asked the tribunal to declare him authentic winner of the election or order that a fresh poll be conducted.

Relying on 50 sets of documents, the petition listed INEC as its first respondent, Buhari and the APC as the second and third respondents.

The petition also raised the allegation that Buhari was unqualified to vie for the presidential election considering that he did not possess the minimum qualification of a school certificate as required by the constitution.

“The 2nd respondent (Buhari) was not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast at the election,” the petition read.

“The election of the 2nd respondent is invalid by reason of corrupt practices.

“The election of the 2nd Respondent is invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended).

“The 2nd respondent was at the time of the election not qualified to contest the said election.

“The 2nd respondent submitted to the 1st Respondent an affidavit containing false information of a fundamental nature in aid of his qualification for the said election.”