The election of Ahmed Aliyu of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) as the governor of Sokoto State has been affirmed by the Court of Appeal in Abuja.
In a unanimous judgment on Monday, the three-member panel of the court’s Sokoto division, which sat in Abuja held that the appellants failed to prove their case.
The panel, headed by Justice Ita Mbaba, dismissed the appeal, marked: CA/S/EP/GOV/SK/30/2023 filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the March 18 governorship election, Saidu Umar.
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The appellate court affirmed the September 30 judgment of the state governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which earlier dismissed the petition by the appellants.
Justice Mbaba, in the lead judgment, held that the tribunal was right to have held that Aliyu and deputy, Idris Gobir were qualified to contest the election and that they did not present a forged certificate as claimed by the appellants.
The PDP and Umar had, in their petition, challenged Aliyu’s victory on the grounds that the governor and his deputy were ineligible to contest, falsification of certificates, variation of names, election fraud, and non-compliance with electoral guidelines.
Justice Mbaba, in the judgment on Monday, held that the appellants failed to provide credible evidence to prove their allegation of non-compliance.
The judge noted, for instance, that the appellants, who were petitioners before the tribunal pleaded and tendered INEC’s Forms EC40G, which were issued in respect of polling units where election results were cancelled, but failed to call witnesses from the affected polling units to speak to the exhibits.
He said although the exhibits showed there was the cancellation of election results 138 polling unit, the tribunal could not on its own conduct an investigation as to what led to the cancellation when the petitioners failed to either call their polling unit agents or INEC officials, who issued the forms.
Justice Mbaba said the documents were dumped on the tribunal.
