Tribunal dismisses Ashiru, PDP’s petition, affirms Sani as Kaduna Governor.

Tribunal dismisses Ashiru, PDP’s petition, affirms Sani as Kaduna Governor.

The Kaduna State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in the state capital has dismissed the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the 2023 election, Isah Ashiru against the victory of Governor Uba Sani of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The tribunal made the declaration on Thursday while delivering judgment via Zoom in a petition by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Isah Ashiru, challenging the election of Sani in the March, 2023 election.

The judgment, which took five and half hours, saw the three-man panel of judges led by Justice Victor Oviawie, and Justice K. Damlat and Justice N. Nonye, struck out the petition because the preliminary notice was filed out of time after the 21- day prescribed by the constitution, and was deemed to have been abandoned.

Giving the split judgment, Justice Victor Oviawie said the preliminary notice was filed outside the 21 days prescribed by the constitution from the day when the result of the election was declared, adding that the petition was deemed to be abandoned.

His ruling was also supported by Justice N. Nonye, while Justice K. Damlat disagreed, noting that the preliminary notice was properly filed and was not abandoned.

However, the tribunal noted that if the petition had not been dismissed for lack of merit, it would have ordered a supplementary election in 22 polling units within 90 days in the substantive judgement.

Reacting to the judgment, counsel to the APC, Sanusi Musa SAN said they were happy with the judgment, adding that they have no course to file any appeal as the judgment is in their favour.

According to him, “The tribunal has dismissed the petition filed by PDP and its candidate in the lead judgment. The tribunal ruled that the petition had been abandoned and it was dismissed. We are happy with the judgment because it affirmed the election of Governor Uba Sani.”

Speaking on the other judgment by the tribunal which looked at the merit of the case, Barr. Musa said: “When the tribunal looked at the merit of the petition, two of the judges said election in 22 polling units is inconclusive because the number of registered voters is more than the margin between the winner and the first runners up”.

Counsel to the PDP, Barr. Baba Aliyu in his reaction to the judgment said they are not fully satisfied with the judgment adding that they wanted their client, Hon. Isah Ashiru Kudan to be declared the winner of the election based on their arguments and facts they laid before the tribunal.

He however stated that they would probably appeal the judgment because they believed that with the evidence before the tribunal, the election should have been upturned.

The PDP had based its arguments on the grounds of alleged irregularities and electoral fraud, deposing that its candidate (PDP candidate), Isa Mohammed Ashiru, won the election.

The tribunal ruled further that INEC is to conduct election in seven wards, four local govts, 24 polling units consisting of 16,300 registered voters.

During the hearing of the petition, the PDP and Ashiru called 24 witnesses and presented claims and documents to prove their case.

PDP and Ashiru are challenging the declaration of Governor Uba as the winner of the March 18th governorship election.

Senator Sani during the election polled a total of 730,001 votes to defeat his closest rival, Mister Ashiru of the PDP, who scored 719, 196 votes.

The Labour Party (LP) candidate, Jonathan Asake came a distant third with 58,283 votes, while Suleiman Hunkuyi of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) scored 21,405 votes.

While the Labour Party and NNPP accepted the outcome of the election, the PDP and its candidate rejected the results, alleging that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the wrong candidate winner of the election.

PDP and Ashiru alleged that there were massive irregularities and manipulation of results in favour of Governor Ubah in some local governments by INEC. According to them, the APC candidate did not score the highest number of valid votes cast in the election and ought not to have been returned winner of the election by INEC.

In June 2023, PDP and Ashiru, however, filed a petition at the election petition tribunal to challenge the election of Governor Uba.

At the last sitting of the court on September 3rd, all parties presented their final written addresses before the tribunal, with APC’s legal team led by a former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Bayo Ojo (SAN), arguing that the petitioners had helped in proving he won the election free and fair, pointing in particular to the admission of a star witness for the petitioner, Bonett Gwazah, a senior system analyst in the VR/ICT department of INEC in Kaduna State.