Alex Enumah in Abuja
For the third time in litigations concerning the March 18 governorship election in Kebbi State, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Governor Nasir Idris, on Friday defeated his closest rival in the poll, Aminu Barde of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
This is just as a five-member panel of the apex court dismissed Barde’s appeal seeking to nullify the declaration of Idris as governor.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Idris governor having scored 409,225 votes to defeat his closest rival, Barde of the PDP, who polled 360,940 votes.
Dissatisfied, the PDP candidate had dragged Idris, his deputy, the electoral umpire and the APC before the Kebbi Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, praying it to void the declaration of Idris on grounds of alleged irregularities, malpractices, non-compliance, as well as non-qualification of the deputy governor.
However, the tribunal disagreed with his claims about the election and subsequently dismissed his petition, which was also dismissed by the appellate court for lacking in merit.
Dissatisfied, Barde and the PDP again approached the apex court to nullify the concurrent judgments of the tribunal and Court of Appeal on grounds that the two lower courts erred in law when they refused to rule in their favour despite the magnitude of evidence presented at the trial.
But the apex court after deliberating on the appeal held that the case of Barde was lacking in merit and that the two lower courts were right in holding that he did not prove his allegations against the election of Governor Idris.
Justice Uwani Abba-Aji, who read the lead judgment, subsequently dismissed it for being incompetent and lacking in merit and went forward to affirm the election of Idris as Governor of Kebbi State.
A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, in a unanimous judgment, dismissed the appeal filed by PDP and Barde, for lacking in merit.
The court, in the judgment delivered by Justice Ndukwe Anyannwu, resolved all the five issues formulated for determination in favour of Governor Sule.
The court held that the appellants failed to establish all the allegations brought up against the governor in their petition.
It held that the allegations of forgery of testimonial brought against the deputy governor of the state, Abubakar Tafida, could not be established as required by law.
It also held that the issues of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act in the conduct of the election could not stand because the appellants failed to prove how the allegations substantially affected the poll.
The court consequently affirmed the judgment of the Kebbi State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, which had on October 5, 2023, affirmed Idris as the duly elected governor.
INEC had declared the March 18 Kebbi gubernatorial election inconclusive owing to “massive vote cancellation and over-voting” in 20 of the 21 LGAs in the state.
The commission later fixed 15 April for a supplementary election.
At the end of the exercise, Idris, the candidate of APC, scored 409,225 votes to beat Barde, who got 360,940 votes.
Barde and his party rejected the result and filed a petition before the tribunal.
In the petition, the petitioners alleged that there was over-voting in some polling units and that Idris was not qualified to contest the poll.
They also alleged that the deputy governor had submitted a fake secondary school testimonial to INEC.
However, in the judgment, Ofem Ofem, the chairman of the tribunal, held that the petitioners failed to prove beyond doubt that the third respondent (deputy governor) presented a fake certificate to INEC.
Justice Ofem added that the evidence presented showed that the testimonial in question was duly signed and issued to him by the then principal of Sultan Abubakar College, Sokoto in 1982.
The tribunal chairman described the documents presented by the petitioners as “iron cast evidence” saying: “We state categorically that the third respondent did not forge certificate.”
On the issue of over-voting, Ofem said out of the 59 polling units being questioned, irregularities were discovered in nine.
The chairman, however, said the deduction of the votes would not affect the margin between the election winner and the first runner-up.
He added that there was no substantial evidence to prove over-voting and irregularities in other polling units.
