Tribunal Admits Gov Aliyu’s Nomination Form, Election Results

The Sokoto State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, on Tuesday, admitted in exhibits the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s completed nomination forms of Governor Ahmed Aliyu and his Deputy Idris Gobir.

The chairman of the Tribunal, Justice Haruna Mshelia, admitted the certified true copies of the documents along with INEC wards and local government areas election results of the March 18 governorship elections in the state.

The documents were tendered by Dr Garba Tetengi, led counsel of the petitioner, Malam Sa’idu Umar, the gubernatorial candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who is challenging the return of Aliyu of All Progressive Congress (APC), as the Governor of Sokoto state.

Counsel to Aliyu and Gobir, Chief Jecob Ochidi and that of APC before the tribunal, Mr Hassan Liman, however respectively objected to the admissibility of the documents and reserved their arguments to come in written addresses.

Meanwhile, Counsel to INEC, Mr AbdulAziz Sani, did not object to the admissibility of the documents, before the Tribunal Chairman, Mshelia adjourned the sitting to June 14, for a continuation of the hearing.

Recalled that the PDP candidate, Sa’idu Umar, in his petition argued that at the time of the election, the respondents were not qualified to contest the election and prayed that by virtue of the non-qualification of the respondents to contest the election, votes were wrongfully attributed to the respondents in the said election and became unlawful or wasted votes, null and void.

He further prayed to the tribunal to mandate INEC to issue a new certificate of return to the petitioner as the duly elected governor of Sokoto state having scored the majority of the lawful votes cast or ordered for another election excluding the respondent’s.