Again, Tribunal upholds Uba Sani’s victory

The National and State Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Kaduna has upheld the election of Sen. Uba Sani.

The tribunal, while delivering judgment on a petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s candidate in the Feb. 23 election for Kaduna Central senatorial zone, Danjuma Lawal popularly known as Mr. LA, dismissed the petition for lack of merit.

Lawal had asked the tribunal to nullify the election of Sen. Uba Sani of the All Progressives Congress (APC) of Kaduna Central Senatorial District on grounds of alleged irregularities.

Chairman of the three-man Tribunal, Justice Adamu H. Suleiman, in a three-hour judgement, said Adamu and the PDP failed to provide substantial evidence of all allegations contained in the petition.

He said that the petitioners presented 38 witnesses before tribunal but all failed to present convincing evidence to warrant the nullification of Uba Sani’s election as information given by witnesses under cross-examination were in variance with what they presented to the tribunal in writing.

The Chairman said the petitioners and their witnesses failed to provide evidence of allegations of over voting, massive rigging, ballot snatching and violence in some parts of Birnin Gwari, Igabi and Giwa LGs as contained in their petition.

Suleiman said, most of the witnesses told the tribunal that the elections were conducted in those affected areas within time stipulated by the electoral act 2010.

He said some of the information on allegations of massive rigging, ballot stuffing and violence in those polling units were obtained by proxy saying, “the court would not use third party information/Hear Say as evidence as contained in the petition.”

The Tribunal also dismissed the petitioner’s allegation that Uba Sani did not resign his appointment as Political Adviser to Gov Nasiru El-Rufai as baseless.

The Tribunal had struck out a similar petition against Uba Sani by Senator Shehu Sani for lack of merit.