The Supreme Court has reserved judgment in the appeal entered by the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Sadique Abubakar, against the judgment of the Bauchi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which upheld Bala Mohammed’s election.
The Appeal Court sitting in Abuja had on November 17 dismissed the case which found that Governor Bala Mohammed of the People’s Democratic Party won the guber poll.
The legal team of the APC candidate had urged the appeal court to declare Mohammed’s election null and void because several electoral documents used during the poll were not properly filled.
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But Mohammed’s lawyers maintained that the assertions were untrue given the findings of the Tribunal.
The appeal court went on to hold that the APC candidate failed to provide credible evidence and testimony to buttress his allegations regarding electoral malpractice and non-compliance to relevant laws.
The court subsequently dismissed the appeal.
On Thursday, the APC candidate’s lawyer, Abiodun Owonikoko told the apex court to set aside the judgements of the two lower courts, arguing that the tribunal failed to make pronouncement on the invalid electoral documents tendered as evidence before it.
INEC counsel, Mohammed N., told the apex court that the tribunal only found blank spaces in some of the electoral forms and not on all the forms.
The lawyer said there was no evidence of forms that were improperly filled at the tribunal.
Counsel for the governor, Chris Uche, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, asked the five-man panel of the apex court chaired by Justice Inyang Okoro to dismiss the “needless appeal”.
Uche said the appellants never brought any witnesses to speak to the electoral documents tendered at the tribunal.
“They did not have materials to support their case,” Uche argued, asking the court to dismiss the appeal.
After hearing the parties, the Supreme Court reserved judgment.