Tribunal: ‘Your Son Campaigned for Buhari’, Atiku, PDP Tells Appeal Court President to Step Aside

  • The petitioners show attached the Facebook printout of Bulkachuwa’s son showing his campaign posts, photographs.
  • Since the matter was already in the public domain, the panel decides to have the issue treated openly.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on Friday told the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal in Abuja that Aliyu Haidar Abubakar, son of the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, campaigned for President Muhammadu Buhari ahead of the February 23 presidential poll.

They alleged that Abubakar was not only a card-carrying member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) but also contested the party’s governorship primary election in Gombe State.

At the tribunal, the petitioners said that they had attached the Facebook printout of the wall of the said biological son of Bulkachuwa showing his campaign posts, photographs and posters canvassing votes for himself as a governorship aspirant and Buhari’s re-election bid to their motion as an exhibit.

They also alleged, as previously stated in the letter wrote by the PDP to the judge on May, that her husband, Adamu Bulkachuwa, won a senatorial seat in the National Assembly poll, held alongside the February 23 election, on the platform of the APC.

They, therefore, stated in a motion filed before the five-man tribunal that Justice Bulkachuwa’s close family ties to top APC members would hinder her from handling the proceedings of the tribunal without bias.

While insisting on Justice Bulkachuwa disqualifying herself as a member and head of the tribunal, the petitioners demand her replacement on the panel and urged her to recuse herself from further participation in the proceedings of the tribunal.

They added that Bauchi State, which was one of the three senatorial districts Bulkachuwa’s husband would be representing at the Senate when sworn in, “is one of the focal states in which the petitioners/applicants have all alleged that electoral infractions occurred”.

They, therefore, sought “an order that Justice Bulkachuwa be recused from further sitting or participating in the proceedings in this petition and be replaced by another justice of this honourable court to sit in her place to hear and determine the petition”.

Bulkachuwa, who led a five-man panel of the tribunal during Wednesday’s proceedings had directed the petitioners to file a formal application that would be heard and ruled upon in the open court.

According to her, since the matter was already in the public domain, the panel had decided to have the issue treated openly.

The petition jointly filed by Atiku and the PDP is one of the four filed before the tribunal to challenge Buhari’s victory at the poll.

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