By Onuminya Innocent in Sokoto
The Court of Appeal, Sokoto Division, on Tuesday ordered a fresh election in the Sokoto North/Sokoto South Federal Constituency of Sokoto State.
The judgment read by Justice Frederick Oho ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct the rerun election within 90 days.
Oho said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for 2019 election in the constituency, Abubakar Abdullahi, proved his case beyond reasonable doubt that the election in the constituency was marred by malpractice and irregularities and therefore nullify the election. Abdullahi challenged the election of the incumbent member, Alhaji Bala Hassan of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the Election Petitions Tribunal which upheld Hassan’s election. The PDP candidate thereby appealed the tribunal’s verdict.
The appellant argued that the election was marred by irregularities and sought redress at the courts.
The Appeal Court awarded N100,000 cost against each of the respondents in favour of the appellant.Mr Ibrahim Abdullahi is the counsel to the appellant and PDP, while Chief Steve Nwoke and Mr Solomon Alimasunya were the counsel to Hassan and APC respectively.
