The Supreme Court of Nigeria has reserved judgment on the governorship election of Nasarawa State.
The legal dispute involves Governor Abdullahi Sule of the APC and Emmanuel David Ombugadu, the PDP’s governorship candidate.
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 which upheld Sule as the lawfully elected governor.
Agabi, a former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, proposed the restoration of the October 2, 2023 judgment of the Nasarawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in favor of PDP and Ombugadu.
The senior lawyer claimed that the Court of Appeal unjustly nullified the Tribunal’s judgment and unjustly declared Sule as winner of the March 18 gubernatorial election.
Agabi specifically called that the Supreme Court should allow the votes of Nasarawa state people to count and be meaningful be declaring PDP and Ombugadu as winners as rightly done by the Tribunal.
APC lawyers, led by 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.
After taking arguments from lawyers, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun announced that judgment has been reserved and that the date for its delivery would be communicated to parties involved.
The Appeal Court had on November 23, 2023 reversed the sack of Gov Sule by the State Election Petitions Tribunal in its judgment delivered on October 2.
The Appellate Court held that the Tribunal headed by Ezekiel Ajayi acted in grave error in using witness statements on oath, not front-loaded as required by law to arrive at the unjust conclusion of nullifying the election of the governor.
The Court of Appeal reversed all orders made against the governor and INEC and affirmed Sule as the lawfully elected governor of the state.
INEC had declared Sule the winner of the governorship election on the grounds that he polled a total of 347,209 votes to defeat his closest opponent David Emmanuel Ombugadu who secured 283,016 votes.
Confidence Okwuchi
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