Appeal Court Delivers Judgement On Nasarawa Governorship Election Dispute Today

The Appeal Court sitting in Abuja will today (Thursday) deliver judgment in the Nasarawa State governorship election dispute involving Governor Abdullahi Sule of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and David Ombugadu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Sule the winner of the governorship election, but Ombugadu headed to the court to challenge Sule’s election victory.

INEC stated that Sule polled 347,209 votes to defeat his closest opponent, who secured 283,016 votes.

But in a split decision on October 2, the tribunal nullified Sule’s election and upheld Ombugadu as the winner.

Not satisfied with the tribunal ruling, Sule had filed an appeal against the verdict, which sacked him and declared Ombugadu the election winner.

Sule, through his counsel, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), asked the appellate court to upturn the tribunal’s judgment and allow his appeal.

Olanipekun argued that the tribunal refused to take the submissions of their witnesses during the tribunal hearing, adding that the BVAS data were merely dumped before the tribunal without being considered as evidence.

In his response, after adopting his processes, Kanu Agabi, counsel to Ombugadu and the PDP, urged the court to dismiss the appeal against the tribunal judgment, stating that their evidence is merely documentary.

On the issue of BVAS, Agabi argued that it was sufficiently demonstrated in the tribunal as demanded by law, with the printout from the machine shown, against the argument that they were merely dumped without being analyzed.

The appeal court had reserved judgment and fixed today to deliver its ruling.