Zamfara Guber: Supreme Court Affirms Dauda Lawal As PDP Candidate

Five days to the State governorship elections in the country, the Supreme Court, on Monday, affirmed Dauda Lawal as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Zamfara State.

The apex court, in a unanimous decision by a five-man panel of Justices, dismissed an appeal filed by an aggrieved gubernatorial aspirant of the party in the State, Ibrahim Shehu Gusau.

Gusau had gone to the court to challenge the legality of the PDP governorship primary election held in the state on May 25, 2022, which produced Lawal.

Delivering its judgement, the five-member panel of the Supreme Court Justtices said Gusau’s appeal “lacked merit.”

The Presiding judge, Justice Inyang Okoro, who read the lead judgement said: “The court resolved all the issues for determination against the Appellant and held that the appeal was unmeritorious and the same was dismissed. Parties were ordered to bear their respective costs.”

The apex court struck out Gusau’s cross-appeal on the grounds that the main appeal had been dismissed.

Recall that a Federal High Court sitting in Gusau, Zamfara State capital, had earlier nullified the primary election that produced the former top banker, Lawal.

The judge, Aminu Bappa-Aliyu, ruled that the PDP had no gubernatorial candidate in the State.

But, in its ruling on Friday 6, January 2023, the Sokoto Division of the Court of Appeal set aside the judgment of the Federal High Court.

In the judgement by Justice Muhammad Shuaibu and two other members of the panel, the Appellate Court ordered the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) to accept Lawal as the elected governorship candidate of the PDP in Zamfara State for the 2023 general elections.