The Supreme Court has reserved judgment in the appeals challenging the election of Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State and Mohammed Nasir Idris of Kebbi State.
A five-member panel of justices led by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun on Tuesday announced that the date for the judgments would be communicated to the parties involved.
For Nasarawa, the appeal was filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, David Ombugadu against Governor Sule of the All Pbrogressives Congress (APC) over the outcome of the March 18 governorship election.
At Tuesday’s proceedings, lead counsel to PDP and its governorship candidate, Kanu Agabi (SAN) appealed to the apex court to set aside the November 23 judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which upheld Sule as the lawfully elected governor.
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Agabi pleaded that the October 2, 2023 judgment of the Nasarawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal granted in favour of PDP and Ombugadu be restored.
However, lawyers to the governor, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and APC urged the appellate court to dismiss the appeal for want of merit.
The APC lead counsel, 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.
While upturning the tribunal verdict, the appellate court had held that the witness statements establishing PDP’s victory were not front-loaded within 21 days stipulated by law.
On the Kebbi appeal, the PDP candidate, Aminu Bande is challenging the verdict of the Court of Appeal, which dismissed his appeal against the governor for lack of merit.
The appellate court had also ruled that Bande failed to prove the allegation of forgery against the deputy governor, Abubakar Tafida.
INEC had declared Idris the winner of the March 18 election having polled 409,225 votes to beat Bande, who got 360,940 votes.
