Nasarawa Governorship: Appeal Court fixes date for judgment

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

It could be recalled that Governor Abdullahi Sule of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had filed an appeal against the verdict of the tribunal which sacked him and declared David Ombugadu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as winner of the election.

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

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

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

However, Sule, through his counsel, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), 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.

In his response, 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 printout from the machine shown, against the argument that they were merely dumped without being analyzed.

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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.

In a notice sent to all parties on Wednesday, the appeal court stated that judgment would be delivered in Abuja on Thursday.