Atiku must have been disappointed by how he almost lost

In the famous court trial of the year, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar summed up his case and claimed the slowest margin of victory anyone could have expected. The press is awash with the story, with Punch Newspapers on the lead.

As reported by Punch:

“The petitioners [Atiku Abubakar and his party] stated through their lawyer, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), that a correct computation of the results would give them a margin of lead of 222,332 votes over President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress.

“They stated this in their response to Buhari’s final address, contending that the correct computation showed that they scored 9,426,082 votes against Buhari’s 9,203,750.

“They claimed that reports tendered by a statistician, who was called as one of their witnesses pointing out faults in the result declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, was not challenged by the respondents to their petition.”

Almost every supporter of Atiku, who believed he won the presidential election of 2019, must have assumed it was by a very wide margin. Hence the interest in going to court. But with the figures that Atiku now claims, it is clear that Atiku and his supporters exaggerated their popularity and understated that of Buhari.

Victory is victory, regardless of the margin. That’s what Atiku will be saying. But the margin is so close that the best he can expect, if the court gives him what he wants, is the nullification of the election and re-contest. If a re-election is held between the two, Atiku’s chances may be worse. The only hope for him is for him to win also on the certificate issue.