The State Election Petitions Tribunal had dismissed Abdullahi Sule, the governor of Nasarawa State, but the Court of Appeal in Abuja overturned that decision in a ruling on October 2.
In rendering its decision, the three-member panel, chaired by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam, concluded that the Tribunal was required by law to act upon witness testimony submitted with the petition or front-loaded within the legally allotted 21 days.
The Appellate Court ruled that in order to reach the unfair conclusion of declaring the governor’s election invalid, the Tribunal, headed by Ezekiel Ajayi, committed a grave error by utilising underoath witness testimony that were not front-loaded as required by law.
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The Court ruled that the Tribunal erred in allowing a petition to be revised beyond the legal 21-day period.
By failing to take into account and reach a decision on jurisdictional issues brought up during the petition hearing, the Court of Appeal claims that the Tribunal deprived the governor of a fair trial.
The court determined that the statements utilised by the Tribunal to remove the Governor were the result of illegality and had no probate value that could be used by a law court. This was because the statements were not front-loaded in accordance with the law.
The Court added that the claims were not supported by the law and rejected the overvoting arguments that were made to void the election.
According to Justice Onyemenam, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for governor, David Ombugadu, filed a petition, but it was declared void because the Tribunal had illegally disregarded the jurisdictional concerns the governor had brought up.
Justice Onyemenam conceded that the governor’s denial of a fair trial was lethal and submitted all of the Tribunal’s rulings as void.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the governor were subsequently the targets of all directives from the Court, which also ruled that Sule was the state’s legitimately elected governor.
With 347,209 votes, Sule defeated his nearest rival, David Emmanuel Ombugadu, who received 283,016 votes, according to the results announced by INEC. Sule was proclaimed the winner of the governorship race.
However, on October 2, the tribunal upheld Ombugadu as the winner and declared Sule’s election to be invalid due to a divided vote.
