Intense pressures are mounting at present on Vice president Atiku Abubakar who is still in the United Kingdom to drop the idea of heading to the election tribunal to challenge the results of the April 21 presidential election which gave a landslide victory to Katsina State Governor, Umaru Yar� Adua.
This is coming as indications emerged on Saturday that the election tribunals would begin sitting this week only in states where petitions have been filed in respect of the just concluded state and federal elections.
But speaking on the telephone with THISDAY last night on the move to get Atiku to accept Yar�Adua�s election, the Media Adviser to the vice president, Mallam Garba Shehu, said Atiku was resolute that the litigation must proceed in the interest of democracy.
Atiku, who contested on the platform of the Action Congress (AC) came, a distant third to Yar�Adua, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the election, following the official results of the presidential poll released by the Inde-pendent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The pressures on Atiku, according to THISDAY checks, began shortly after the presidential election when some state governors and mutual friends of both Atiku and Yar�Adua approached the vice president to prevail on him to drop the idea of going to the tribunal.
Former Special Duties Minister, Chief Yomi Edu, who is an associate of the vice president was said to have first taken the personal initiative to prevail on Atiku to accept Yar�Adua�s election.
Sources said Edu had been shuttling between Lagos and London to meet with the vice president to persuade him to accept the outcome of the election.
By virtue of his relationship with the late Major-General Shehu Musa Yar�Adua, Edu is also said to be very close to the Katsina State governor who is the younger brother of the late Tafidan Katsina.
According to THISDAY sources, Edu�s initiative was soon complemented by those of some governors particularly Chief James Ibori of Delta State respectively who is also known to be close to Atiku.
It was learnt that Ibori met with Alhaji Lawal Kaita, an associate of the vice president, last Wednesday night at the Defence House, Abuja, Yar�Adua�s temporary residence as president-elect; where the duo tried to get Atiku through Kaita to drop the court case.
Sources said Ibori proposed at the meeting that rather than taking the tribunal option, Atiku should nominate people to serve in the impending cabinet of the president-elect.
Before the vice president left for the UK two weeks ago for medical treatment, sources said some friends of Yar�Adua came to have audience with Atiku where they suggested to him to nominate people to serve in Yar�Adua�s government.
Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is also said to be in on the negotiations. Tinubu had met with Yar�Adua on two different occasions.
The mutual friends of Atiku and Yar�Adua who are mounting pressure on the Vice President are hinging their case on two grounds. One, they made it clear that going to court cannot get Atiku a declaration as the winner of the election since he came a distant third. The Vice President is being reminded that if he got any reprieve in court to nullify Yar�Adua�s victory, the next candidate to Yar�Adua, Maj-Gen. Muahmmadu Buhari (rtd) will be the beneficiary having come second at the polls.
Atiku, a source said is being reminded that �except he can take on both Yar�Adua and Buhari together at the tribunals, he would be exerting energy to get Buhari into the presidency.�
Another leg of the argument of the people seeking to persuade Atiku to drop plans to challenge Yar�Adua�s victory is that both men having been members of the Yar�Adua group led by Umaru�s late brother, Shehu, are said to have several common denominators.
�They are both members of the Board of Trustees of the Yar�Adua Foundation like Yomi Edu and President Olusegun Obasanjo�, another source said.
The move to get the vice president to accept the results of the presidential poll, acc-ording to sources, also has an international angle to it.
United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. John Cam-pbell, was said to have met Atiku before he travelled to ask him to adopt a �political solution� to the outcome of the poll.
Campbell also met with the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) presidential candidate in the election, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, to propose that he adopt a political solution to the outcome of the election.
But it was learnt that the vice president has continued to insist he will challenge the results of the election in court.
Atiku was said to have put the proposal that he nominated some people into Yar�Adua�s cabinet before AC top leadership organ called �The Summit�, equivalent of PDP Board of Trustees, which however kicked against the idea had concluded that The Summit nominating people to work with Yar�Adua will compromise the �good case� they have.
It was learnt that the pressures being mounted on him at home not to go to court over the poll was part of the reason why the vice president had not come back from the UK.
�That is why he has not come back from the UK. He wants to come back when the petition would have been filed at the Court of Appeal. He has constituted his legal team, the same team of 13 Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) that have been handling his political cases. He has also instructed them to file the petition,� one source who pleaded not to be named said.
Speaking with THISDAY on the telephone, Atiku�s spokesman, Shehu said the pressures on the vice president were not totally unexpected adding however that the vice president was resolute that the results of the poll must be challenged in the interest of democracy.
�This is not totally unexpected. Even within the political family, opinions are bound to differ on how to proceed with the struggle. What is reassuring is that the vice president has remained resolute and steadfast that the litigation must continue in the interest of democracy. For the fact that the presidential election is the only one that can go to the Supreme Court, it is significant for the country that the Supreme Court will now be called upon to set new benchmark for the conduct of election in the same way as it did with respect to the impeachment of state governors otherwise the country will continue to dance on one spot,� he said.
Shehu also said the matter was beyond Atiku and Yar�Adua. �It�s about the nation and its future. Atiku has nothing personal against Yar�Adua. PDP and Yar�Adua should start getting ready for the court because our legal team is 80 per cent ready to forward its petition to the Court of Appeal,� he said.
Meanwhile, the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Umar Abdullahi, has said all the 37 Election Tribunals will be assigned this week only to states where petitions arising from the just concluded 2007 elections have been filed.
He said the tribunals would commence sitting immediately in respect of petitions from those states.
In a message delivered on his behalf by Justice Ayo Salami of the Court of Appeal, Lagos, at a one-day training workshop on election tribunal observation organised by the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Justice Abdullahi said those that would be involved in the post election litigations were also conscious of the expectation of Nigerians about the enormous task before them.
He said decisions to be arrived at by the tribunal would be based on the evidence before the tribunals and pleaded with Nigerians to appreciate the constraints the judiciary was facing in terms of enforcing its orders.
The President of the Court of Appeal said in order to have a fair trial he held a meeting with all the states� chief justices who in turn recommended judges from their states that would serve in the tribunals.
According to him, the reason those judges have not been assigned is because the judiciary does not want the judges to be compromised because some people have been going round to know where judges would be assigned.
Justice Abdullahi said the tribunal would only sit in states where petitions had been filed and would have no business going to states where no petition exists.
He also said any judge found wanting in the task would be seriously dealt while also advising lawyers to assist in discharging justice in the petitions filed by shunning delays.
Justice Abdullahi said no amount of blackmail would discourage tribunals from discharging their duties because so much hope had been bestowed on the judiciary.
�Nobody is too powerful to be disciplined and every judge knows the implication of committing foul play in the exercise of his duty,� he said.
Justice Abdullahi reminded the gathering that as lawyers, they should know that the results already declared by Independent National Ele-ctoral Commission (INEC) were presumed correct and that the onus would be on the petitioner to prove otherwise.
He said where the weight of evidence produced, favoured the petitioner, the judiciary would certainly do its job.
The Court of Appeal President also said the court had issued a practice direction for the handling of the election petitions.
In his welcome address, the first Vice- president of the NBA, Barrister Akuro George, said as a stakeholder in the Nigeria project, the association was interested in the peaceful and credible conduct of election and general stability in the country.
The training of its members on the observation of the work of the tribunal, he said, was meant to further educate them on the task ahead.
A member of the National Democratic Institute, Keith Jennings, said the workshop was very important and an opportunity for lawyers to bring their professional skills to bear in restoring credibility into the electoral process.
He condemned the alleged intimidation of the civil society, especially the leadership of the Alliance for Credible Election, saying such attitude by the government was not in line with democratic tenets.
He advised INEC to always follow the electoral law by releasing results of elections at polling stations.
He called on the tribunal to ensure speedy trials of all issues while all aggrieved parties should respect the rule of law.