The Supreme Court has reserved judgement in the appeal against the election of Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State.
Also, yesterday, at the court, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the state, Mr. David Ombugadu, prayed to the apex court to declare him the winner of the March 18, 2023 governorship election.
He said the decision of the Court of Appeal, which validated the re-election of Governor Abdullahi Sule of the All Progressives Congress, was wrong.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had returned Sule as the winner of the March 2023 poll, but the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal on October 2, 2023 nullified the election of Governor Abdullahi Sule.
The governor then headed to the Court of Appeal which restored his mandate on November 23, 2023.
The two parties renewed the battle for the governorship seat at the Supreme Court yesterday in Abuja.
Ombugadu insisted that there was over-voting during the governorship poll, adding that the Court of Appeal was not right to have recomputed the results of the election in favour of Sule.
In his brief, he said: “We contend that the Court below was wrong when it held that the appellants did not give legal evidence and that the trial tribunal was wrong to have recomputed the votes in the way it did.
“To address this issue, it is apt to briefly reiterate that the Appellants’ case premised on the lone ground that the 1st Respondent (Sule) was not elected by a majority of lawful votes cast which was principally anchored on the improper entries of results duly declared at the polling units from FORM EC8As to EC8Bs and in some cases outright cancellation by the collation officer when he clearly lacked the vires to so do.
“We commend your Lordships to the case of AGAGU vs MIMIKO (2009) 7NWLR PT 1140) 342 at 432 CA where the Court held that ‘It is settled that the polling booth results as set down in form EC8A is the primary evidence of votes cast in an election.’
“Furthermore, in successfully proving this allegation, the Appellants tendered the certified true copies of both the Form EC8As and FORM EC8Bs in proving the said allegation.”
He said since Sule did not dispute all the documents he presented at the tribunal and the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court should uphold his election.
He faulted the Court of Appeal for relying on eye witnesses to arrive at its conclusion.
He said oral testimony of witnesses were incapable of varying and/or altering the contents of the unchallenged documents
He said with the enactment of Section 137 of the Electoral Act, 2022, the necessity of calling polling units agents had been obviated
He added: “At the risk of emphasis, the evidence before the Trial Tribunal and indeed now before this court is largely documentary as they are result sheets emanating from the election.
‘All the witnesses did was to identify the documents and the same were tendered through them. These documents were not disputed by the Respondents as there was no contrary document placed before the court to impeach their admissibility or weight, as the case may be, and the documents were duly certified and tendered per the express provision of Section 137 of the Electoral Act, 2022
“There was no contrary evidence to debunk the validity of those documents.”
Ombugadu urged the apex court to pay attention to the discrepancies in Ward and Polling units to give him victory.
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