The Apex Court in Nigeria, Supreme Court of Justice will on Thursday, settle all the legal tussles relating to the Sokoto State governorship elections as the day has been set aside to give its verdict.
This is according to a notice of judgment made available to the parties by the court which was made available to our correspondent, Nafiu Lema, an aide to the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Sai’du Umar.
Recall that the PDP candidate in the March 18 governorship election, Sai’du Umar, approached the Apex court following the dismissal of his petition, against Governor Ahmed Aliyu, by both the election petition tribunal and the Court of Appeal.
Umar and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party listed nine grounds upon which they are asking the Supreme Court to set aside the concurrent judgments of the election petition tribunal and the Court of Appeal which affirmed the election of Ahmed Aliyu as Governor of Sokoto State.
In the appeal, the documents which were made available to our correspondent by Nafiu Lema, media assistant to the candidate, filed on their behalf by their team of lawyers led by Mr Sunday Ameh, SAN, the appellants claimed that “the judgment of the Court of Appeal is against the weight of evidence”, and as such should be set aside by the apex court.
The three-member panel of the appellate court had in a unanimous judgment last year held that the appellants failed to substantiate allegations of irregularities, noncompliance as well as nonqualification contained in their appeal.
Meanwhile, supporters of both ruling parties in the state, the All Progressive Congress and that of the main opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party, have gone spiritual while awaiting the Supreme Court pronouncement.
Some of the supporters of the governor organised a special prayer for his victory at the court at Sultan Abubakar III Jumat mosque, while those of the PDP candidate was said to have organised theirs at an undisclosed venue.