The Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja has described the People’s Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, as being “clever by half” in his petition seeking to upturn President Bola Tinubu’s victory.

Atiku and his party had urged the presidential tribunal to deduct “irregular votes” from the 2023 presidential election results declared in favour of President Tinubu by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Yakubu Mahmood, in the 2023 election.

The PDP candidate had presented a statistician and forensic examiner, Samuel Oduntan, as part of his witnesses.

Oduntan claimed that he studied the polling unit results from across the federation, alongside 6 team members and discovered irregular votes across the states, including those won by the PDP.

But under cross-examination by Tinubu and Shettima’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun SAN, the witness admitted that he did not attach pictorial samples of any of the INEC forms he referred to in his report.

Justice Boloukuoromo Moses Ugo declared that Atiku’s assertions are “vague” as the reports by his witness did not state the actual votes he scored and the affected polling units in dispute.

The judge ruled that the petitioners were “clever by half” because they never gave any credible details on Tinubu’s alleged non-qualification.