Uzoukwu a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and Lead Counsel of the Atiku/Obi legal team, disclosed this in an interview on Monday after leading other lawyers to file petition on behalf of Alhaji Abubakar at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had on February 27, declared President Buhari, the flag-bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), winner of the presidential election. Buhari polled a total of 15,191,847 votes while Atiku Abubakar got 11,262,978.
However, Abubakar and his party, the PDP, were dissatisfied with the conduct of the election and the eventual declaration of Buhari as winner and moved to seek legal redress.
In a bid to meet up with the 21 days stipulated by section 134 of the Electoral Act, 2010, Dr. Uzoukwu, head of the legal team, led other lawyers to submit a petition on behalf of his client on Monday.
The petition which was duly signed by Alhaji Abubakar himself, has the PDP as co-petitioner while INEC, APC and President Buhari were joined as respondents. Dr. Uzoukwu expressed optimism that his client would emerge victorious at the tribunal, saying he was convinced that PDP won the presidential election in the first place.
On the question of moral qualification posed on the Chairperson of the Tribunal, Justice Zainab Adamu Bulkachuwa, whose husband is a Senator-elect under the APC, Dr. Uzoukwu said his team would wait until the matter begins at the tribunal.
He said, “I don’t want to express any opinion in that regard now, but until the matter is ready to go on, because as we speak, I do not have the facts and I don’t want to speculate”.
He said that to successful prosecute the case at the tribunal, Alhaji Abubakar and the PDP have assembled about 20 SANs and 400 witnesses.
The lawyers are praying the tribunal that their client, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar be returned “as person who won majority of lawful votes cast at the election”.
In an event that the main prayer does not scale through, the lawyers also pushed for an alternative prayer, “that the election be set aside and for the court to order a rerun”.
