UPDATED: Tribunal sacks APC’s Gov Sule, declares PDP’s Ombugadu winner of Nasarawa guber

 

 

 

The Nasarawa Election Petitions Tribunal has declared David Ombugadu, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), winner of the Nasarawa State governorship election which held on March 18, 2023.

 

The tribunal in its ruling declared the election of Governor Abdullahi Sule of the All Progressives Congress (APC) null and void.

 

Counsel to David Ombugadu, Johnson Usman (SAN), explained what transpired inside the court. “The tribunal came to an irresistible conclusion that based on polling unit results where elections held successfully, collated successfully, but were wrongly entered into the ward results (form EC8B), and taking the results of all the polling units, there is no doubt that Umbugadu won the election by the majority of lawful votes cast and was declared by the tribunal. This judgement  can only be interpreted by a Latin word ; ‘ vox populi, vox dei.’ That is, the voice of the people, the voice of God.”

 

Earlier, the tribunal sitting in Lafia had dismissed the case brought by the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), challenging the confirmation of Governor Abdullahi Sule as the duly elected governor of Nasarawa State for lack of merit.

 

The three-man panel, led by Justice Ezekiel Ajayi, said, “The petition lacks merit and is hereby dismissed”.

 

According to him, the petitioner failed to prove his case beyond reasonable doubt for alleged over voting, disruption of votes, among others.

 

However, the tribunal had refused to award costs against the NNPP.

 

 

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had on March 20, declared Sule of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the governorship election in the state after he purportedly had the highest number of votes during the polls.

 

He was re-elected for a second term in office after beating his closest contender, David Ombugadu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who got 283,016 votes while Abdullahi Maidoya of the NNPP had 11,726 votes.

 

The PDP and NNPP, along with their individual gubernatorial candidates, appealed to the tribunal to nullify Sule’s victory, citing dissatisfaction with the outcome of the election.

 

Details later…