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The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that President Muhammadu\nBuhari was \u201ceminently qualified\u201d to contest the February 23 presidential\nelection. The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that President Muhammadu Buhari was \u201ceminently qualified\u201d to contest the February 23 presidential election. The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, prepared the full judgment of the apex court which is being read by Justice John Okoro. The full judgment delivered on Friday was to provide explanations for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[14,10],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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\nThe Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, prepared the\nfull judgment of the apex court which is being read by Justice John Okoro.
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\nThe full judgment delivered on Friday was to provide explanations for\nthe apex court\u2019s summary decision of October 30 which dismissed the appeal by\nthe People\u2019s Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar\nchallenging the victory of Buhari at the February 23 presidential poll.
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\nIn the full judgment of the apex court delivered on Friday, the court\naffirmed the decision of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal which held\nthat Buhari possessed the requisite educational qualification to contest the\npoll.
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\nIt held that the Nigerian Constitution only required a candidate\ncontesting the presidential election to be educated up to secondary education\neven when the candidate does not possess the certificate.
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\nIt added that by virtue of the provisions of the Constitution, a\ncandidate who possesses a primary school certificate and has worked in the\npublic or private service for a period not less than 10 years, and can read,\nwrite and communicate in the English language to the satisfaction of INEC is\nqualified to contest.
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\nIt also held that contrary to the contention of the appellants, Buhari\ndid not submit false information about his educational qualification to the\nIndependent National Electoral Commission.
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\nIt also ruled that the appellants failed to prove that the www.factsdontlie.ng<\/a> from which the appellants downloaded the\nresults of the election which they relied on, belonged to INEC.
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\nThe Supreme Court also said the appellants failed to prove the alleged\nirregularities including over voting.
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\nIt added that the appellants merely dumped documents on the lower\ncourt without calling witnesses to demonstrate them.
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\nIt ruled that it was alarming that the appellants only called five\npolling unit agents across the entire polling units in the country in their\nattempt to prove the alleged non-compliance with the provisions of the\nElectoral Act.
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\nThe judgment is still being delivered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"