afrol News, 27 February - One of the losing candidates of Nigeria's presidential elections in April last year, Atiku Abubakar, has rubbished the verdict of the special tribunal, describing it as a denial of justice.

The tribunal on Tuesday validated the election of President Umaru Yar'Adua, throwing away the election petitions of Atiku Abubakar and Muhammadu Buhari for lack of substantial evidence.

For the lawyers of Mr Yar'Adua, the ruling should close the chapter. But angered opposition said they are poised to ride on with the legal battle.

According to Mr Abubakar, Nigerians' "buoyed prospects" of going to the polls to choose their new leaders in a free and fair elections last April were broken by an atmosphere fraught with fraud, intimidation and outright illegality.

"Today, in an epochal and far reaching judgment, the Presidential Elections Petitions Tribunal has, in its own wisdom, decided that the charade called "elections" held in April of last year was a fair representation of the free will of the Nigerian people," Abubakar said in a statement.

He said the judgment is a lost to the peace loving people of Nigeria who have had their voices silenced again.

"Justice has not been done and the rape of our young democracy has been sustained. The future of constitutional democracy and free and fair elections in Nigeria, nay, Africa, remains imperilled and we must redouble our efforts at vigilance."

Abubakar said "right must prevail over wrong" no matter how long it takes. He said the judgment has not shaken his belief that "our democracy has no alternative," which was why he had instructed his lawyers to file an appeal at the Supreme Court to overturn the judgment.

The AC leader said the battle is lost, but the war remains because "we must rebuild our politics, economy and society. We must redefine what it means to be a Nigerian.

He said the so-called "elections" have been adjudged by all, far and near, local or foreign, to be the worst elections ever conducted on the face of planet Earth.

"The elections were so incurably bad that even those "selected" under this subversive fraud have freely admitted on record that the process was hopelessly flawed," Abubakar, a former Vice President, said, noting that the orchestrators and perpetrators of the act believed that "once firmly entrenched in their illegally acquired offices, they could foist upon us all a fait accompli and silence our collective voices. But they were wrong!"

He said as a law abiding and people-first committed democrat, he had banked hopes on the judiciary to dispense justice fairly and without bias.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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