The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Minna, yesterday, upheld the election of Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger State.

  Mohammed Umar Nasko and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) had dragged Bello who is the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his deputy before the tribunal. The petitioners had alleged that the duo presented forged academic and declaration of age certificates to INEC, which was the crux of their case.

   Chairman of the tribunal, Justice John Igboji, held that the petitioners merely pleaded facts without substantiating them with evidence.

Igboji also said that the tribunal cannot sit as an appellate court on an issue already decided by the Federal High Court.

However, the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal reserved judgment  in a petition filed by the PDP and its  candidate, Abba Kabir-Yusuf.

The PDP and Kabir-Yusuf  are challenging the declaration of Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje as the winner of the March 23 election. Justice Halima Shamaki, chairman of the tribunal, after listening to the parties in the matter, said a judgment date would be communicated to them  by the tribunal, and thanked the parties for their cooperation and support during the hearing.

Counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Ahmad Raji (SAN), while adopting his final  written address, prayed the tribunal to dismiss the PDP petition for lacking in merit.

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Raji, said INEC was straight forward in discharging their duty on the objection to the exhibit tendered to the tribunal; the only latitude on the petitioner was to tender  certified true copy to the tribunal.

Counsel to Ganduje, Offiong Offiong (SAN) adopting his final written addresses, also prayed the  tribunal to dismiss the petition.

“We wish to elaborate our arguments in page 26 and 27 paragraph 4.17 to 4.25 of the final written addresses,’’ he said explaining that the exhibits of results tendered by the petitioners ‘pink copy’ are invalid, lacks merit and that the tribunal should dismiss the matter.

Mr Alex Eziyon (SAN) APC counsel described PDP’s petition as incompetent, having claimed by the petitioners that the lawful cancellation of 207 results was unjustifiable.

Eziyon told the tribunal that INEC has the power to cancel results, or declare the winner at the collation center, and urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition.

Adeboyega Awomolo  (SAN) who responded on behalf of the counsel to the petitioners, urged the tribunal to declare Abba Kabir-Yusuf of PDP as winner of the election based on the documents tendered by the respondents.

Said Awomolo: “PDP scored the majority votes in the election as at March 9, the governorship election was concluded and the result issued.