The Court of Appeal, sitting in Abuja on Wednesday, reserved judgment in the appeal brought before it by Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State, seeking to overturn the split decision of the Nasarawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which sacked him from office.
The Tribunal, in a two-to-one judgment of a three-member panel of justices, declared the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), David Ombugadu, as the winner of the March 18, 2023, Nasarawa State governorship election. However, a dissenting ruling by one of the three Justices upheld the election of Governor Sule.
The appellate court reserved judgment in the appeal to a date that would be communicated to parties after all the processes filed in the matter were adopted.
Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), representing the Appellant, urged the court to allow the appeal and set aside the judgment of the lower court, which, he added, was not fair by not giving consideration to the evidence of the witnesses called by the appellant, who was a respondent at the lower court.
According to Olanipekun, the Tribunal did not give consideration to the objections raised by the respondent and the list of authorities filed before arriving at its decision. He said BVAS machines used in the election were returned as they came since the Petitioners did not speak to them at the Tribunal.
Chief Kanu Agabi (SAN), representing Ombugadu and his party, listed as first and second respondents, prayed the court to dismiss the appeal and affirm the judgment of the Tribunal.
While adopting all the processes filed in the appeal, the senior lawyer said the case of the appellant, according to the Tribunal, was documentary. He submitted that screenshots of BVAS machines and reports were tendered and demonstrated at the Tribunal and urged the court to dismiss the appeal and affirm the majority judgment of the lower court.
Earlier, the court reserved ruling on a motion by the first and second respondents, praying the court to strike out the appellant’s affidavit of facts and grounds eight and 25 of the appellant’s grounds of appeal. After taking arguments by Olanipekun in objection to the motion, the court held that the ruling would be delivered together with the judgment in the appeal.
The Nasarawa State governorship election petition tribunal, which sat in Lafia, had, in a split judgment, recently declared the PDP candidate, Ombugadu, the winner of the governorship election.
Governor Sule rejected the majority judgment read by the tribunal chairman, Justice Ezekiel Ajayi, describing the position of the majority judgment as unmeritorious and devoid of evidential support base or pillars.
In a notice of appeal, hinged on 27 grounds, Governor Sule questioned the trial Tribunal’s jurisdictional competence to order the immediate swearing-in of Ombugadu as the governor, pointing out that, not being the final court, the Tribunal lacks the requisite competence to do so. He also averred that the majority decision of the lower tribunal in declaring the return of PDP’s Ombugadu failed to be bound by the provisions of Section 179 (2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution as amended and Section 66 of the Electoral Act 2022.
Sule equally argued that there was no evidence before the tribunal demonstrating the percentage of votes scored by Ombugadu, vis-a-vis the total votes cast in two-thirds of the 13 Local Government Areas in the State to satisfy the provisions of Section 179(2) of the 1999 Constitution as Amended.
Sule, therefore, urged the Appellate Court to set aside the lower court’s decision and affirm his election victory as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
. TheWitness
