Tribunal upholds Tambuwal’s election

The Sokoto State election petition tribunal has upheld the election of the state governor, Aminu Tambuwal, as the validly elected governor in the 2019 general elections.

A three-member panel on Wednesday said the All Progressives Congress and its candidate, Ahmed Aliyu, failed to prove the allegation of election malpractices against Mr Tambuwal and his party the Peoples Democratic Party.

Mr Aliyu and his party accused the PDP and INEC of manipulating the results.

They alleged that the elections were not conducted ”in substantial compliance to the electoral laws.”

The APC demanded nullification of the results declared by INEC alleging that they were the valid winners of the election.

But the panel led by Abbas Babawale said the APC failed to prove the allegations in its petition.

The tribunal ruled that the pieces of evidence presented by the witnesses were mostly hearsay and the petitioners failed to discharge the burden of proof vested on them.

The tribunal also noted some pieces of evidence translated to English language by the petitioners but wondered why the direct statements of the witnesses given in Hausa language were not tendered.

Mr Tambuwal, who contested the election for his second tenure, was declared the winner by INEC after the commission announced that he had polled 512,002 votes to defeat Mr Aliyu with 511,660 votes indicating a margin of only 342 votes after a rerun election was conducted on March 23.

INEC had declared the March 9 election inconclusive after it announced that a total of 75,403 votes were canceled.

The figure exceeded the margin between the two highest scorers at the main election which was 3,413 votes.

The APC has vowed to challenge the tribunal’s decision describing as a travesty of justice.