By Abdallah el-Kurebe
The Supreme Court on Monday, declared Aminu Tambuwal as the duly elected Governor of Sokoto state and dismissed the appeal by Ahmed Aliyu, which challenged Tambuwal’s election in the March 9, 2019 governorship election.
The unanimous judgment by the Supreme Court panel, led by Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, who stood in for the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice IbrahimTanko Mohammed, held that Aliyu did not prove his claims against Tambuwal’s election.
Justice Uwani Abba-Aji, who delivered the lead judgement, ruled that the evidence presented by Aliyu had “no evidential and probative value having not been properly certified at the tribunal.
During the hearing, Counsel to Aliyu, Alex Izinyon, SAN, asked the apex court to nullify Tambuwal’s election, because he had not evidence to justify the 342 votes, which separates him from the APC candidate. While Aliyu polled 511,661 votes, Tambuwal scored 512,002 votes, in the rerun.
However, Tambuwal’s counsels, Emmanuel Ukala, SAN, and Muyiwa Akinboro, SAN, asked the Supreme Court to dismiss Aliyu’s appeal, while arguing that Tambuwal met the standard of proof that he won the election.
“The Supreme Court cannot tamper with the concurrent judgments of the lower courts, if it is not in any way perverse or proved to be wrong,” Akinboro argued.
However, in her judgement, Justice Uwani Abba-Aji, dismissed the appeal on grounds that the appellant failed to prove his allegation of non compliance with the electoral act and issues of over-voting.
