In the contentious legal dispute surrounding the Nasarawa State governorship election, the Supreme Court reserved its decision on Tuesday.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) governor Abdullahi Sule is currently facing legal action from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate for governor, Hon. Emmanuel David Ombugadu.
Lead attorney for the PDP and its candidate for governor, Kanu Agabi SAN, filed an appeal with the supreme court on Tuesday to overturn the Court of Appeal’s November 23 ruling upholding Sule as the duly elected governor.
Agabi, a former minister of justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), advocated for the restoration of the Nasarawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal’s October 2, 2023 ruling in favor of Ombugadu and the PDP.
The senior attorney contended that Sule was wrongfully named the winner of the March 18 gubernatorial election and that the Court of Appeal had unjustly overturned the Tribunal’s decision.
He specifically demanded that the Supreme Court uphold the Tribunal’s right to declare PDP and Ombugadu the winners, so allowing the votes of the people of Nasarawa to count and have significance.
The APC, INEC, and the governor, on the other hand, request that the appeal be dismissed by the court for lack of merit.
In adopting its brief of arguments, the APC attorneys, lead by Akin Olujinmi SAN, requested that the supreme court thoroughly review the authorities referenced in order to support their motion for the case to be dismissed.
Judge Kekere-Ekun declared that the verdict had been reserved and that the parties concerned would be notified of the date of delivery following the conclusion of the attorneys’ arguments.
In a decision rendered on October 2, the State Election Petitions Tribunal had dismissed Sule. This decision was overturned by the Appeal Court on November 23 of last year.
The appellate court ruled that the Tribunal, led by Ezekiel Ajayi, had made severe mistakes by relying on under oath witness testimony rather than front-loading them as required by law, leading to the unfair conclusion that the governor’s election should be void.
The Court of Appeal stated that the Tribunal was constitutionally required to act on witness statements submitted with the petition or front-loaded within the allotted 21 days in a ruling read by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam.
The Court ruled that, contrary to what the Tribunal incorrectly did, no petition may be legitimately revised beyond the 21-day period permitted by law.
“Since the statements used by the Tribunal to sack the Governor were not front-loaded in compliance with the law, the statements were a product of illegality with no probate value for a law Court to act upon”.
The Court also dismissed the over-voting issues used to annul the election, adding that the allegations were not established by law.
Justice Onyemenam held that the petition by the Governorship candidate of the PDP was null and invalid on the grounds that the jurisdictional issues raised by the governor were unlawfully ignored by the Tribunal.
The Court of Appeal ruled that the Tribunal denied the Governor a fair hearing by not considering and making findings on the issues of jurisdiction raised at the hearing of the petition.
Justice Onyemenam agreed that the denial of a fair hearing against the governor was fatal and tendered all decisions of the Tribunal invalid.
In all, the Court of Appeal reversed all orders made against the governor and INEC and affirmed Sule as the lawfully elected governor of the state.
INEC had declared Sule the winner of the governorship election on the grounds that he polled a total of 347,209 votes to defeat his closest opponent David Emmanuel Ombugadu who secured 283,016 votes.