The Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, was declared the winner of the March 18 governorship election by the Court of Appeal, which met in Abuja on Friday.
Sadique Abubakar, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for governor, filed the appeal after the tribunal’s decision to affirm Mohammed’s victory.
The court decided that all parties involved in the case should pay their own costs, and the panel of three justices reached this decision unanimously.
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The appellant’s plea order was read aloud by the presiding justice to the appeal court.
The appellant’s first plea was for the election to be ruled invalid due to improper filling of the forms and booklets used for voting. The appellant was unable to provide sufficient evidence to support this accusation, the court decided.
The appellant was also found to have omitted information from the forms, failing to specify which polling stations were engaged in the aforementioned claims. It further declared that the appellant could not demonstrate how the aforementioned incorrectly completed forms had an impact on the election’s outcome.
The tribunal’s meticulous examination of the presented evidence was commended by the court, which also ruled that the appellant’s witnesses were unable to demonstrate that they knew what the forms looked like.
Regarding the appellant’s claim of widespread noncompliance with election laws, the court determined that the appellant was unable to provide evidence of this as some of the witnesses who gave testimony did not cast ballots on election day, and those who did cast ballots did so solely based on what they observed in their polling places.
Regarding the claimed unprofessional behaviour of INEC personnel, the court expressed the same opinions as the tribunal, stating that the appellant had not included it in their plea at the lower court and that it was not a topic of argument.
Mohammed, the first respondent, was granted the plea.
Regarding the argument that there were fraudulent cancellations, mutilations, and amendments made in favour of the PDP candidate, the appeal court stated that election results could be cancelled if it is shown that there was resultant fraud.
But if the appellant claimed the INEC-tender was forged, the court ruled he bore the burden of proving this and had to present the original.
Regretfully, the applicant was unable to provide proof of this, the court stated. The court further stated that the appellant should have at least provided a legitimate outcome in addition to the aforementioned fabricated one.
