APC’s Petition Against Tambuwal Lacks Merit, Appeal Court Rules

The Sokoto Division of the Court of Appeal has reaffirmed that Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal is the duly elected Chief Executive Officer of the state in the governorship election held in February 2019.

The appellate court gave the judgement on Friday in an appeal overseen by four judges.

According to the lead judge, Justice Husseini Mukhtar, the appellate court upheld the judgement of the tribunal which had earlier dismissed the petition filed against the governor by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its governorship candidate, Ahmed Aliyu.

The court noted that both appeal and cross-appeal are lacking in merit and thereby dismissed them at no cost. The court also took time in resolving all issues brought before it in favour of the respondents.

Three other judges on the panel, however, agreed with the lead verdict delivered by Justice Mukhtar.

Aliyu and the APC had on 16th October 2019, filed the appeal before the court, challenging the judgement of the tribunal that dismissed Aliyu’s petition.

The petition had challenged the declaration of the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Governor Tambuwal as the winner of the general and supplementary polls conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on 9th and 23rd of March, 2019, respectively.

Tambuwal polled 512, 002 to defeat his opponent and the former deputy governor Aliyu who scored 511,660. The margin between the two was 342.