By AbdulRaheem Aodu
Kaduna
The governorship election petition tribunal sitting in Kaduna, yesterday upheld the election of the Kaduna state Governor, Malam Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai of the All Progressive Congress (APC).
The tribunal had earlier delayed its judgment as journalists, lawyers, parties to the petition, stakeholders and members of the public were kept waiting for almost four hours.
The judgement, which was expected to commence from 9am, was delayed till 1.40 pm when the three judges arrived.
Chairman of the three-man election petition tribunal, Justice A. Adebara, while delivering the five-and-half hours judgment, dismissed the petition of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) gubernatorial candidate for the April 11 election in Kaduna state, Mr Polycarp Danladi Gankon for lack of merit.
The APGA candidate, who placed third in the election, had approached the tribunal to challenge the non inclusion of his party’s logo in the ballot papers for the election, noting that had the APGA logo been included in the election materials, APC would not have won the polls.
The tribunal in its ruling averred that the APGA candidate’s name was not included in form EC8A in some polling units in seven local government areas.
The tribunal also annulled the election cast in polling units where the form EC8A were not properly authenticated some were signed but not stamped while some were stamped without signing, thus the result of the elections in those polling units were cancelled and deducted from the total votes scored by the APC, PDP and APGA.
Commenting on the judgment, counsel to Governor el-Rufai, Omokayode Adebayo Dada said that the APGA candidate has the option of appealing the judgment if he is not satisfied with the ruling.
Counsel to the petitioner, Olumuyiwa Olowokure commended the judges for “a well researched judgment based on the tribunal perception of evidence before it”.