Garba's appointment was made public when hearing of the cases against President Muhammadu Buhari's second term victory resumed on Monday, June 10, 2019.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, had filed an application against Bulkachuwa to request that she recuse herself from the panel because she's the wife of Adamu Bulkachuwa who was recently elected the Bauchi North Senator on the platform of Buhari's All Progressives Congress (APC).

The main opposition party said it's worrying that she decided to appoint herself the chairman of the panel despite that members of her family, especially her husband, are active members of the APC which is a respondent in the suit.

Even though the petitioners' application was dismissed by the panel, Bulkachuwa recused herself based on personal reasons on May 22. 

Garba will now head the five-member election petition tribunal at the Court of Appeal in Abuja. The tribunal has adjourned proceedings till Tuesday, June 11.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) crowned Buhari winner of the February 23 election with 15,191,847 of the total votes cast while Atiku gained 11,262,978 votes.

However, in a petition filed before the tribunal, Atiku claimed that he actually won the election with 1.6 million more votes than Buhari according to an internal compilation of results he claimed was obtained from INEC's server.

According to the result obtained from the INEC server as claimed by Atiku in his petition, the former vice president actually scored 18,356,732 votes while Buhari scored 16,741,430 votes. This does not include results from Rivers State which had allegedly not been transmitted at the time Atiku claims the data was captured.

While filing its response before the tribunal on April 11, INEC accused Atiku and the PDP of producing fake election results to prove their case.

"INEC specifically denies the existence of electronic transmission of results and it is unknown to the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended)," the commission noted in its response.

Atiku also accused Buhari of not possessing the educational qualification to contest, alleging that he submitted false academic documents to INEC to aid his qualification.

In their counter to Atiku's petition, Buhari and the APC said the former vice president is not qualified to contest for the presidency because he was born in Adamawa State at a time when it was Northern Cameroon before it voted during a 1961 referendum to align with Nigeria.