Appeal Court reverses sack of Nasarawa State Gov Sule by tribunal

On Thursday, the Court of Appeal in Abuja overturned the decision of the State Election Petitions Tribunal that sacked Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule on October 2.

The Appellate Court said that the Tribunal led by Ezekiel Ajayi made a serious mistake in relying on witness statements on oath that were not front-loaded as the law demands to reach the unfair verdict of cancelling the governor’s election.

Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam, who delivered the judgement of the Court of Appeal, said that the Tribunal had a legal duty to act on witness statements that were filed with the petition or front-loaded within the 21 days set by the law.

The Court said that any petition that is amended after the 21 days permitted by the law is unlawful, as the Tribunal did wrongly.

The Court said that the statements that the Tribunal used to remove the Governor were illegal and worthless for a law court to use because they were not front-loaded according to the law.

The Court also rejected the over-voting issues that the Tribunal used to cancel the election, saying that the claims were not proven by law.

Justice Onyemenam said that the petition by the PDP governorship candidate was void and invalid because the Tribunal did not consider the jurisdictional issues that the governor raised.

The Court of Appeal said that the Tribunal did not give the Governor a fair hearing because it did not examine and make findings on the jurisdictional issues that the Governor raised at the hearing of the petition.

Justice Onyemenam agreed that the lack of a fair hearing for the governor was fatal and made all the decisions of the Tribunal invalid.

In conclusion, the Court of Appeal reversed all the orders that the Tribunal made against the governor and INEC and confirmed Sule as the legally elected governor of the state.