Supreme Court upholds election of Ganduje, Tambuwal, Mohammed

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the election of Abdullahi Ganduje as duly elected Governor of Kano State. It also upheld the election of Aminu Tambuwal as Governor of Sokoto State, and Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State.
The Five-Member panel, dismissed the appeals and cross appeals filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in Kano, Abba Yusuf.
NAN reports on Nov. 22, the court of appeal in Kaduna reaffirmed Ganduje as the duly elected governor of Kano state.
The appellate court panel led by Tijjani Abubakar upheld the ruling of the Kano governorship election tribunal which ruled in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Ganduje, its candidate in the March election.
The panel dismissed the petitions filed by the PDP and Yusuf, governorship candidate of the opposition party, on the grounds that the petitions lack merit.
The Independent National Electoral Commissioner (INEC) had declared Ganduje winner of the election, saying he polled 1,033,695 votes while Yusuf, his closest rival, garnered 1,024,713 votes.
Dissatisfied with INEC’s declaration, Yusuf and his party headed to the tribunal where they sought annulment of the election “on the grounds that there were irregularities”.
However, judgment was delivered in favour of the governor.
Reacting to the appellate court ruling on Friday, the PDP and its candidate said they will study the judgment and file an appeal before the apex court.
“We will get the full judgment to know the basis of the judgment before proceeding to the supreme court,” he said.
But Ibrahim Mukhtar, attorney general and commissioner for justice in Kano, said the judiciary upheld justice.
“Today’s judgement shows that the judiciary is working and there is justice in our court,” he said.
The Supreme Court also on Monday, affirmed the election of Aminu Tambuwal of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as the duly elected governor of Sokoto State in the March 2019 governorship election.
The apex court dismissed an appeal of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, Ahmed Sokoto, filed to challenge Tambuwal’s re-election.
A seven-man panel of justices of the court headed by Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Tanko Muhammad, held that the appellant failed to adduce any credible evidence to prove his petition against the outcome of the governorship election.
Justice Musa Abba-Ajji who delivered the lead judgement, noted that whereas the appellant produced 12 witnesses before the tribunal, 11 of them made their statements in Hausa language while the English version was tendered in evidence.
It held that the appellant failed to tender the original version of the statements he tendered in evidence and also failed to produce the translator to confirm the authenticity or otherwise of the 11 statements.
Besides, the apex court held that the appellant was unable to prove that the election was invalid by virtue of non compliance with the Electoral Act.
By NAN