The Supreme Court has reserved judgement in an appeal challenging the March 2023 governorship election in Nasarawa State that produced Abdullahi Sule as the governor of the state.
Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, who led the five-member panel of justices, reserved judgement after taking arguments from lawyers involved in the matter on Tuesday, January 16, 2024.
Justice Kekere-Ekun added that the date for the judgement delivery would be communicated to the parties involved.
The legal battle is between Governor Sule of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Emmanuel Ombugadu.
The PDP through its counsel Kanu Agabi (SAN) appealed to the apex court to set aside the November 23, 2023, judgement of the Court of Appeal which upheld Sule as the duly elected governor.
Agabi argued that the October 2, 2023, judgement of the Nasarawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal granted in favour of PDP and Ombugadu be restored.
He claimed that the Court of Appeal unjustly nullified the tribunal’s judgement and declared Sule as the winner of the March 18 gubernatorial election.
READ ALSO: Appeal Court affirms Abdullahi Sule as Nasarawa governor
He pleaded that the votes of the people of Nasarawa State be counted and meaningful by declaring PDP and Ombugadu as winners.
Meanwhile, APC lawyers, led by Akin Olujinmi (SAN), while adopting his brief of arguments asked the Supreme Court to carefully look into the cited authorities to back up their request for dismissal of the case.
The Appeal Court had, on November 2024, reversed the sack of Sule by the tribunal in its judgement 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 conclusion of nullifying the election of the governor.
It held that the tribunal was legally bound to act on witness statements filed along with the petition or front-loaded within 21 days stipulated by law.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Sule as the winner of the governorship election on the grounds that he polled 347,209 votes to defeat Ombugadu who garnered 283,016 votes.
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