The Court of Appeal in Abuja has upheld the election of Ahmed Aliyu of the All Progressives Congress as the governor of Sokoto state. In a unanimous judgment on Monday, a three-member panel of the court’s Sokoto division, sitting in Abuja, dismissed the appeal challenging Aliyu’s victory.
The appeal, marked: CA/S/EP/GOV/SK/30/2023, was filed by the Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate in the March 18 governorship election, Saidu Umar.
The PDP and Umar had challenged Aliyu’s victory on the grounds of ineligibility, falsification of certificates, variation of names, election fraud, and non-compliance with electoral guidelines.
The court, led by Justice Ita Mbaba, upheld the September 30 judgment of the state governorship election petition tribunal, which earlier dismissed the petition by the appellants.
Justice Mbaba, in the lead judgment, held that the tribunal was correct to have found that Aliyu and his deputy, Idris Gobir, were qualified to contest the election and that they did not present forged certificates.
The court further held that the appellants failed to provide credible evidence to prove their allegation of non-compliance with electoral guidelines.
Justice Mbaba noted that the appellants failed to call witnesses from the affected polling units to speak to their exhibits, which showed the cancellation of election results in 138 polling units.
