The Abuja division of the Court of Appeal has reserved judgment in the appeal brought before it by Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State seeking to upturn the decision of the Nasarawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which sacked him from office.
A three-member panel of justices headed by Justice U. Onyemenam told parties involved that the date for judgment will be communicated.
When hearing commenced, Wole Olanipekun, counsel for Sule who filed five processes to challenge the appeal, urged the Court to dismiss the judgment of the Tribunal and allow the appeal of his client.
Olanipekun noted that the Tribunal refused to take the submissions of their witnesses during hearing and that data from the BVAS tendered to the Tribunal were merely dumped and not considered as evidence.
After adopting his processes, Kanu Agabi, counsel for David Ombugadu and the PDP, in his reply, urged the Court to dismiss the appeal against the Tribunal judgment stating that their evidence are merely documentary.
On the issue of BVAS, the senior lawyer 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.
The Tribunal had, in a split decision of two-to-one by a three-man panel declared the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), David Ombugadu as the winner of the March 18, 2023 Nasarawa State governorship election.
A dissenting ruling by a member of the panel however upheld the election of Governor Sule.
(Editor : Ena Agbanoma)
