Alex Enumah in Abuja
The Supreme Court has restored the election victory of Dauda Lawal at the March 18 governorship election in Zamfara State, shortly after it restored that of Kano State.
The appellate court in separate judgments had nullified the election of three governors of Kano, Zamfara and Plateau States for allegedly not being lawfully elected as governors.
However, delivering judgment in the appeal by Lawal, Justice Emmanuel Agim, who delivered the lead judgment, held that the judgment of the appellate court, which nullified the judgment of the tribunal that affirmed the election of Lawal as governor, was perverse and ought to be set aside.
“The judgment of the Court of Appeal has no evidential foundation and it is hereby set aside.
“The order setting aside the judgment of the tribunal and order for fresh election are hereby set aside.
“The judgment of the tribunal dismissing the petition of the petitioners for lacking merit is hereby affirmed,” Justice Agim held.
According to the judgment, the petitioners never provided sufficient evidence to prove allegations of irregularities non-compliance, corrupt practices, adding that petitioners failed to call relevant witnesses such as polling agents, party agents or people who witnessed the election.
Besides, the apex court pointed out that relevant materials like the BVAS, voter register, forms EC40G, amongst others, were also not presented before the court to prove the petitioners’ case.
INEC had declared Lawal of the PDP governor having scored a total of 377,726 votes to defeat then incumbent governor Matawalle who scored 311,976 votes.
Lawal’s election was also affirmed by the Zamfara Election Petitions Tribunal last September, after dismissing Matawalle’s petition for being incompetent and lacking in merit.
Besides, the tribunal awarded a sum of N500,000 fine against the petitioners for filing the petition.
However, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal led by Justice Oyebisi Folayemi, nullified the return of Governor Lawal as the winner of the governorship poll.
Justice Sybil Nwaka ordered INEC to conduct a fresh election in three local government areas of the state, where elections had not been held previously or where results from various polling units were not counted.
Dissatisfied, Lawal had approached the apex court to set aside the judgment of the appellate court and affirm the judgment of the tribunal which affirmed his victory at the poll.
However, much is not expected in the appeals involving Bauchi and Ebonyi States governorship appeals since the apex court hardly upturn concurrent findings of the lower courts especially when new and convincing evidence were not presented at the hearing.
