Appeal court reserves judgement on Sokoto gov’ship tussle

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has reserved judgement in the appeal by an All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirant, Senator Umar Dahiru, challenging the election of Governor Aminu Tambuwal.

A three-man panel of justices presided by Justice Abubakar Datti Yahaya, yesterday, said the date for the judgement would be communicated to the parties.

Dahiru had filed the appeal challenging the ruling of a Federal High Court in Abuja which in June dismissed his suit and that of another APC governorship aspirant, Aliyu Abubakar Sanyinna, on the ground that they could not prove the allegations of irregularities in the primary.

The judge said even if the applicants had succeeded in proving that there were irregularities in the December 4, 2014 primary, the court could not grant the reliefs because it was not an election petitions tribunal and therefore lacked jurisdiction.

Earlier, counsel to the appellants, Roland Otaru (SAN), had asked the appeal court to remove Tambuwal as governor on the grounds that he was not lawfully and validly elected as the APC candidate for the 2015 governorship election.

However, APC counsel, Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), asked the court to dismiss the suit for lacking in merit.

He submitted that the appellants were inconsistent in their pleadings having allegedly claimed that there was no primary election conducted and in another averment established that not all the authentic delegates were accredited for the primary election.