[News] Supreme Court upholds Nasarawa gov’s election

The Supreme Court on Friday, Jan. 19, affirmed Abdullahi Sule as the duly elected governor of Nasarawa state.

The incumbent governor, Abdullahi Sule of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Emmanuel David Ombugadu, had been in a legal tussle over the governorship seat.

In a judgement delivered by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, the five-member panel of Justices of the Court, which she led, upheld the judgement of the Court of Appeal which had, in November, affirmed the election of Sule as Nasarawa state governor.

“I have carefully read the submissions of parties in the appeal and the documents tendered and I resolve all the issues in this appeal against the appellants.

“This appeal lacks merit and is accordingly dismissed. The cross-appeals marked, SC/CV/1214/2023, SC/CV/1215/2023 are also dismissed”, the court held and affirmed the judgement of the Court of Appeal which reversed the judgement of the Nasarawa State Governorship Election Petition which sacked governor Sule from office.

At the proceedings on January 19, lead counsel to the PDP and its governorship candidate, Chief Kanu Agabi (SAN) urged the apex court to set aside the November 23 judgment of the Court of Appeal which affirmed Sule as the lawfully elected governor of Nasarawa state.

In its place, Agabi prayed the apex court to restore the October 2, 2023 judgment of the Nasarawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal granted in favour of PDP and Ombugadu, adding that, the Court of Appeal unjustly nullified the Tribunal’s judgment and unjustly declared Sule as winner of the March 18 governorship election in the state.

Agabi specifically prayed the Supreme Court to be meaningful by declaring PDP and Ombugadu as winners as rightly done by the Tribunal.

However, Governor Sule, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and APC, in their submissions, urged the court to dismiss the appeal for lacking in merit.

APC lawyers, led by Akin Olujinmi (SAN) while adopting his brief of arguments asked the apex court to carefully look into the cited authorities to back up their request for dismissal of the case.

The Appeal Court had on November 23 last year reversed the sack of Governor Sule by the State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in its judgment delivered on October 2.

The Appellate Court held that the Tribunal headed by Ezekiel Ajayi acted in grave error in using witness statements on oath, not front-loaded as required by law to arrive at the unjust conclusion of nullifying the election of the governor.

In a judgment delivered by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam, the Court of Appeal said the Tribunal was legally bound to act on witness statements filed along with the petition or front-loaded within 21 days stipulated by law and that, no petition can lawfully be amended outside the 21 days allowed by law as wrongly done by the Tribunal.

The Court also dismissed the over-voting issues used to annul the election, adding that the allegations were not established by law.

Justice Onyemenam held that the petition by the Governorship candidate of the PDP was nullity and invalid on the grounds that the jurisdictional issues raised by the governor were unlawfully ignored by the Tribunal and ruled that the Tribunal denied the Governor a fair hearing by not considering and making findings on the issues of jurisdiction raised at the hearing of the petition.

Justice Onyemenam agreed that the denial of a fair hearing against the governor was fatal and rendered all decisions of the Tribunal invalid.

The Court of Appeal reversed all the orders made against the governor and INEC and affirmed Sule as the lawfully elected governor of the state.