The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja on Thursday allowed the appeal filed by Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, against the majority judgment of the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which pronounced David Ombugadu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the winner of the state’s March 18 governorship election.
Governor Sule had appealed the judgement delivered by the tribunal’s chairman, Justice Ezekiel Ajayi, asking the appellate court to set it aside.
At the hearing on Wednesday, the governor’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun SAN, argued that the tribunal misapplied the law in reaching its decision.
He contended that the Tribunal erroneously relied on the BVAS machines tendered as evidence without any demonstration by the petitioners or the court.
Olanipekun averred that the Tribunal did not see evidence of overvoting in any of the INEC Form EC8AS tendered by the petitioners but went ahead to nullify his client’s election.
“This is unfair,” Olanipekun said, asking the court to set aside the judgment of the tribunal.
However, the PDP candidate’s lawyer, Kanu Agabi SAN, contended that the tribunal analysed the contents of the BVAS, contrary to the submissions of Olanipekun.
He added that if a court has examined exhibits before it, its judgement cannot be unfair.
Kanu then urged the court to dismiss the appeal, saying there were other arguments he could have made but could not due to time constraints.
In its judgement on Thursday, the Court of Appeal faulted the Tribunal for relying on non-credible evidence to nullify Sule’s election.
They subsequently expunged all the evidence and exhibits the PDP Candidate tendered as exhibit while returning Sule As Nasarawa Governor.
