Tribunal Verdict: PDP expresses worry over delay in releasing judgment record

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) says it is worried over what it described as undue delay in releasing the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) judgment record on the Feb. 23 election.

The party raised the alarm in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, on Friday in Abuja.

The election petition tribunal had on Wednesday dismissed the petition by PDP and Atiku Abubakar against the election and victory of President Muhammadu Buhari at the poll.

The PDP had indicated its intention to head for the Supreme Court to seek redress.

Ologbondiyan demanded the immediate release of the record of the judgement as delivered by the tribunal “without any form of alterations.’’

He described the delay as a calculated attempt to frustrate the PDP and its Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to promptly file an appeal to upturn the judgement at the Supreme Court.

Ologbondiyan said that the Court of Appeal was aware that the PDP and its candidate had mandatory 14 days to appeal to the Supreme Court.

He said that in spite of this the court was delaying in releasing a judgment that was read for nine hours.

“Our party fears that this development is lending credence to suspicion in the public space that the judgement is being tampered with and altered, in the name of correcting errors, knowing that there is no way the verdicts can stand the scrutiny of the Supreme Court.’’

Ologbondiyan expressed hope that there was no link between the circumstances surrounding the delay and comments by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole.

“The PDP had always alerted Nigerians of the relentless efforts by the APC to manipulate processes.

“We are happy that our party and Nigerians in general, have the full video and audio recording of the judgement and we will not hesitate to expose any underhand act by anybody,’’ he said.