In a unanimous judgement on Friday, the Supreme court upheld the election of Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State as duly elected governor of the state.
The apex court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal delivered on November 23, that faulted the verdict of Nasarawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which sacked Gov Sule and declared David Ombugadu of People’s Democratic Party , PDP, as the winner of the election.
Delivering the lead judgement, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun agreed with the lower court decision that two documents tendered through the bar at the hearing were not within the time stipulated by the electoral Act therefore out of time.
She also noted that the number of votes from the two documents which were added by the tribunal to PDP votes came from the two documents tendered through the bar .
“Having considered all the arguments and issues raised in the appeal I resolved all the issues against the appellant”
The apex court found no merit in this appeal and is consequently dismissed. The orders made by the Court of Appeal is upheld and this appeal is dismissed for lacking in merit.
She said that three other appeals on same Nasarawa State Governorship election would abide by the decision.
Other justices on the panel: Justices Uwani Abba-Aji, Lawal Garba, Ibrahim Saulawa and Tijani Abubakar agreed with the judgement delivered by Justice Kekere-Ekun.
The supreme court had on January 16 reserved judgment in the appeal filed David Ombugadu who had sought to void the election of Abdullahi Sule as governor of Nasarawa state.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Sule as winner of the election with 347,209 votes.
David Ombugadu, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), polled second with 283,016 votes.
However, the PDP candidate had expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the governorship election, citing alleged irregularities.
On October 2, the election petition tribunal in Lafia nullified Sule’s victory and declared Ombugadu as winner of the poll.
Consequently, Sule and the APC sought to overturn the verdict of the tribunal.
The court of appeal in its judgment on November 23, faulted the verdict of the tribunal and affirmed Sule’s election as governor.
Delivering judgment, Uchechukwu Onuemenam, who read the lead verdict, held that evidence before it showed that the tribunal relied on legally inadmissible evidence to declare Ombugadu as winner of the March 18 poll.
According to the appellate court, the tribunal wrongly relied on the evidence of eight of the PDP witnesses, whose statements on oath were not front-loaded alongside the petition.
The appellate court further held that Section 285(5) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended; Section 132(7) of the Electoral Act 2022 and Paragraphs 4(5) (6) and 14(2) of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act; stipulates that every written statement on oath must be filed alongside the petition, within the statutorily allocated time.
The appellate court proceeded to strike out all the evidence and exhibits that were tendered before the tribunal by the eight witnesses.
It held that the evidence of 12 remaining witnesses, who testified for the PDP candidate, were not sufficient to sustain the judgment of the tribunal.
Furthermore, the appellate court held that the tribunal erred when it deducted a total of 1,868 votes that were credited to the APC candidate on the grounds that over-voting occurred in four polling units.
The court said the petitioners failed to provide the necessary documents needed to prove over-voting.