Nasarawa guber: Appeal Court delivers judgment Thursday

Appeal Court sitting in Abuja has fixed Thursday for judgment in the Nasarawa State governorship election dispute.

All Progressives Congress candidate, Governor Abdullahi Sule, had filed an appeal against the verdict of the tribunal which sacked him and declared Peoples Democratic Party’s David Ombugadu as winner of the election.

Independent National Electoral Commission had declared Sule winner of the governorship election but Ombugadu had headed for the court.

INEC had said Sule polled a total of 347,209 votes to defeat his closest opponent, who secured 283,016 votes.

But the tribunal in a split decision on October 2, nullified Sule’s election and upheld Ombugadu as the winner.

Sule, through his counsel, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), however, asked the appellate court to upturn the judgment of the tribunal and allow his own appeal.

Olanipekun argued that the tribunal refused to take the submissions of their witnesses during the tribunal hearing, adding that the BVAS data were merely dumped before the tribunal without being considered as evidence.

Responding after adopting his processes, Kanu Agabi, counsel to Ombugadu and the PDP, urged the court to dismiss the appeal against the tribunal judgment, stating that their evidence are merely documentary.

On the issue of BVAS, Agabi argued that it was sufficiently demonstrated in the tribunal as demanded by law, with the print out from the machine shown, against the argument that they were merely dumped without being analysed.

Agabi, who referred the court to the judgment of the tribunal, argued that in delivering judgment, the lower court painstakingly gave a breakdown of how it arrived at its decision.

The appeal court had reserved judgement.

Appeal Court in a notice, on Wednesday, stated that judgement will be delivered in Abuja on Thursday.

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