Abdullahi Sule, the governor of Nasarawa State, had his contentious dismissal by the State Election Petitions Tribunal reversed by the Court of Appeal in Abuja.
In a major legal milestone, the tribunal’s October 2 ruling that declared Governor Sule’s election invalid has been overturned.
The Tribunal, presided over by Ezekiel Ajayi, was found to have made a grave mistake in its ruling by the Appellate Court, presided over by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam.
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The governor’s election was mistakenly declared void due to the Tribunal’s unreasonable reliance on witness testimony that were not front-loaded as required by law.
Justice Onyemenam stressed that the Tribunal had a legal duty to take into account any witness statements that were either front-loaded or submitted with the petition within the allotted 21 days.
The Court declared that any modification made to a petition by the Tribunal after this period has passed is illegal.
Most importantly, the Court decided that the assertions the Tribunal had employed were illegal products with no probate value that a legitimate Court could apply.
The Court ruled that the claims of excessive voting, which were essential to calling for the annulment of the election, lacked legal support and dismissed them.
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Regarding jurisdictional matters, the Court decided that the Tribunal had improperly disregarded the governor’s expressed objections, making the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) gubernatorial candidate’s petition void.
Justice Onyemenam emphasised that depriving the governor of a fair trial was catastrophic, making all Tribunal rulings void.
The Court of Appeal overturned every injunction against Governor Sule and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in a broad ruling. The decision upholds Sule’s legitimacy as Nasarawa State’s legitimate governor.
According to INEC, Sule won the governorship race with 347,209 votes, more than his nearest rival David Emmanuel Ombugadu’s total of 283,016 votes.
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Ombugadu was declared the winner in a split decision, and Sule’s victory was declared void by the tribunal’s first ruling on October 2. But after a drawn-out legal fight, Governor Abdullahi Sule’s mandate has been reinstated following a recent Court of Appeal verdict. #Nasarawa
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