President Muhammadu Buhari acknowledges cheers at the Eagle Square, Abuja, on June 12, 2019. PHOTO: BAYO OMOBORIOWO |
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari Wednesday said the ruling of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on the February 23, 2019 poll, is victory for Nigerians that elected him for a second term in office.
“Good conscience fears no evil report,” Buhari said in a statement by presidential spokesman Femi Adesina.
The Nigerian president said he was not disturbed during the entire period of the tribunal proceedings because he knew Nigerians voted him in freely.
“We are now vindicated,” Buhari said in reaction to the tribunal’s dismissal of the petition by the People’s Democratic Party and its candidate Atiku Abubakar.
Buhari praised the judiciary for “dispensing justice without fear or favour.”
The tribunal dismissed the petition of PDP and its candidate Abubakar in challenging the victory of Buhari at the 2019 presidential election.
The tribunal chairman Mohammed Garba said the petitioners failed to prove their petition beyond reasonable doubt and the petition “is hereby dismissed in its entirety.”
President Buhari, however, extended a hand of fellowship to the opposition over the outcome of the election, and went to court, noting that it was within their democratic rights.
He noted, however, that with the pronouncement of the judiciary that the country needs to move forward as “one cohesive body, putting behind us all bickering and potential distractions over an election in which Nigerians spoke clearly and resoundingly.”
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