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Sokoto guber: PDP’s Umar files appeal at Supreme Court

Following judgement of the Court of Appeal which upheld the election of Ahmed Aliyu Sokoto of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as duly elected Governor of Sokoto State in the March 18 governorship election, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Saidu Umar, has filed a fresh appeal at the Supreme Court, Abuja.

Umar and his party, the PDP 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 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.

Recall that a three-member panel of the appellate Court had in a unanimous judgment last month held that the appellants failed to substantiate allegations of irregularities, non-compliance as well as non-qualification contained in their appeal.

Justice Mbaba Bassi, who delivered the lead judgment held that the tribunal was right in expunging evidence of non-compliance and other alleged irregularities and malpractices because the evidence were presented by incompetent witnesses.

Bassi further held that the failure of the appellants to list and front-load the statement of the witnesses was fatal to their case.

They had presented INEC’s form EC40G (incident form; showing elections were cancelled due to over-voting or disruption. According to the appellate court, the form EC40G, “shows electorate were given opportunity to vote but something went wrong culminating in the cancellation of the election”.

While stating that he does not think it was necessary to call any person to speak again to such documents in line with Section 137 of the Electoral Act, Justice Bassi however observed that precedence already set by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court in related matters, demand that the appellants lead oral evidence to support the allegation of manipulation of votes through the cancellation of election in 138 polling units.

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