The tribunal in Kaduna State on Saturday affirmed the election of Lawal Adamu-Usman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the senator representing Kaduna Central.
Abdullahi Muhammad-Sani of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had filed a petition challenging the election of the PDP senator on four grounds that include school certificate forgery, overvoting, non-compliance, and the nomination and sponsorship of the candidate.
All the grounds presented by the petitioners were dismissed by the three-member panel led by Justice H.H. Kereng, who ruled: “The elections and return of the first respondent are hereby affirmed. This petition is hereby dismissed.”
Earlier, the judge stated that the petitioner failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the respondent’s NECO results and other school certificates were forged.
He added that the petitioner also failed to prove that the respondent was not duly elected by majority votes in the February 25 poll.
“The APC got 182, 035 votes, while the PDP got 225, 066 votes, giving a margin of 43, 031. The petitioner has failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the respondent didn’t get majority vote. Therefore, this issue is in favour of the first respondent and against the petitioner,” he ruled.
On the issue of non-compliance, the judge averred that the petitioner couldn’t prove that there was non-compliance that affected the election results.
He added that sponsorship and nomination of candidates are responsibilities of political parties, not of the court, and thus resolved it in favour of the respondent.
