Adamawa Tribunal Upholds Senatorial Elections of Yaroe, Abbo

Daji Sani

A National and State Assembly Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Yola, Adamawa State has upheld the elections of Senators Binos Yaroe and Cliff Ishaku Abbo, both of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), representing Adamawa South and North Senatorial districts respectively.

Justice Sulaiman Akambi –led Tribunal struck out the suits filed by former Senators Abubakar Mo-Allahyidi and Binta Massi Garba, both of All Progressives Congress (APC), challenging the victory of Yaroe and Abbo, for lack of evidence.

The tribunal, in a unanimous decision, averred that MoAllahyidi did not provide enough evidence to warrant the court to nullify Yaroe’s election.

Mo-Allahyidi had instituted the suit on the grounds that the February 23 National Assembly elections conducted in the southern zone which brought Yaroe to power was marred by irregularities.

He had alleged that the exercise was characterised with massive violence, bribery, alteration of result sheet, vote buying, overvoting, and non-accreditation of voters which according to him outrightly violated some sections of the Electoral Act.

The APC candidate prayed the court to declare Yaroe’s election invalid because he was not elected by the majority of the voters in the zone, urging the court to declare him (Mo-Allahyidi) as the winner of the election and should order the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue him with the certificate of return.

But, Yaroe kicked and prayed the court to dismiss the petition in its entirety for lack of merit, arguing that the petitioner had failed to tender concrete evidence in support of his case.

Delivering the judgment on the suit yesterday, Justice Akanbi dismissed the APC candidate’s petition, stating that he failed to prove his case beyond reasonable doubt.

The presiding judge, who was assisted by two other Justices, declared that the petitioner could not link his prayers of violation of electoral acts with concrete evidence, thereby dismissing the suit for lack of merit.

In the same vein, Justice Akanbi said the petitioner in the suit against Abbo failed to prove the grounds of its petitions to warrant the tribunal to order for a supplementary election.

The court noted that the testimony of the PW 1 and 2 was more of beneficial to the respondents, stressing that the testimonies of all the witnesses were full of hearsays which is not admissible in court.

Garba had approached the tribunal seeking for an order to conduct a supplementary election in 11 wards in the district on two grounds of over-voting and violation of Electoral Act.

The court, while dismissing the petition, added that parties could appeal the judgement and no cost was awarded.

Similarly, the petitions brought against three members of the House of Representatives were all dismissed for lack of evidence and lack of merits.