The Court of Appeal in Abuja has set aside the September 28 judgment of the election petition tribunal which declared the last governorship election in Kaduna state inconclusive.
In three unanimous judgment on Friday, November 24, a three-member panel of the court held that, as against the finding of the tribunal, the election was conclusive and won by the All Progressives Congress (APC) whose candidate was Uba Sani.
The court held that there was no basis for the tribunal to have ordered the conduct of supplementary election in 22 polling units in seven wards in four Local Government Areas in Kaduna State.
Justice Obietonbara Daniel-Kalio, in his lead judgment in the main appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and it’s candidate in the election, Mohammad Isa, resolved the five issues, identified for determination, against the appellants.
Justice Daniel-Kalio held that the petition filed by the appellants at the trial tribunal was deemed abandoned because their application for the issuance of pre-hearing notice was filed prematurely, before the close of pleadings and was therefore considered incompetent and void.
He said: “The consequence of filing premature application for issuance of pre-hearing notice is that the petition is deemed abandoned.”
The judge also held that the tribunal was right in holding that the written statement on oath of subpoenaed witnesses were invalid having not been filed with the petition as required under Paragraph 4 (5) of the 1st Schedule to the Electoral Act.
He further that the tribunal was right to have rejected substantial portions of evidence of two witnesses called by the petituoners for being hearsay evidence.
Justice Daniel-Kalio held that, as against the contention by the appellants, the tribunal correctly evaluated the evidence adduced by them.
“I cannot see where the tribunal incorrectly evaluated the evidence of the appellant’s and that the evaluation was perverse,” he said and proceeded to dismiss the appeal for lacking in merit.
Justice Daniel-Kalio, who also read the lead judgments in the cross-appeals by the APC and Sani, allowed both appeals and set aside part the judgment of the tribunal which declared the election inconclusive and ordered the conduct of fresh election in 22 polling units.
He held that the tribunal was wrong to have ascribed probative value to election results, which it found to have contained discrepancies, in arrive at its conclusion that the election was inconclusive.
In a separate judgment, another panel of the appellate court dismissed the petition by the PDP and its candidate in the last governorship election in Kebbi state.
Justice Uzo Ndukwe-Anyannwu, who read the lead judgment, resolved all the five issues, identified for determination, against the appellants.
Justice Ndukwe-Anyannwu, who held that the appellants failed to prove their claims of forgery and non-complaince, said the appeal was without merit.
She further held that the allegations of forgery of testimonial made by the appellants against the state’s Deputy Governor of the State, Abubakar Umar was unproved.
The judge equally held that there tribunal was right to have held that Umar attended the secondary school he claimed to have attended.
She said there were sufficient evidence to show that Umar attended the Sultan Abubakar College, Sokoto.
Justice Ndukwe-Anyannwu proceeded to affirm the earlier judgment of the trial tribunal which dismissed the appellants’ petition and upheld that election of Governor Nasir Idris of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kebbi state.
