Court strikes out part of Atiku’s petition against Buhari (Live update)

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in its second ruling on Wednesday upheld the argument by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC that it was wrong for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to raise criminal allegations of intimidation, harassment, corruption, and so forth against security personnel and some named persons, but who are not parties to the petition.

The Tribunal said the court lacked the powers to entertain any criminal allegations against any person, who is not before it.

The court then struck out the portions of the petition by Atiku and his party where such allegations are contained.

The Tribunal had earlier upheld Atiku and PDP contention that, issues of qualification and whether or not a candidate supplied false personal information to INEC before the election, could be heard before or after an election.

The court said questions about a candidate’s qualification could be heard by either a High Court or an election tribunal.

It held that it has jurisdiction to determine the lingering issue of whether or not Buhari was qualified to contest the election.