The Court of Appeal has affirmed the election of Bala Mohammed of the Peoples Democratic Party in the March 18 governorship election in Bauchi State.
The Court of Appeal on Friday upheld the judgement of the Bauchi State Elections Petitions Tribunal.
The Tribunal had dismissed the petition filed by the All Progressives Congress and its candidate, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, a former Chief of the Air Staff.
Delivering the judgement, a three-member panel, led by Justice Chidiebere Uwa, dismissed the appeal for lacking in merit.
Uwa held that the appellants failed to prove their allegations of non-compliance to the provisions of the Electoral Act by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The appellants had alleged that electoral materials were not properly filled in eight local governments of the state.
However, the Court said that the appellants did not call officers of INEC, supervising and presiding officers to give evidence to prove that the said forms were not filled and why.
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The Court held that though there were blank spaces in some of the forms produced as evidence, it was not substantial enough to cancel the election because the appellants failed to prove what should have been in those spaces.
It held: “From the pleadings, the appellants failed to state the specific details, which were to be in the alleged forms, that were not put on the forms.”
The Court held that the tribunal did a thorough job in evaluating the evidence and that “the evidence of the petitioners were unreliable.
“This appeal is hereby dismissed as the appellants failed to prove their case.”
The Bauchi State Election Petitions Tribunal on September 5, 2023 upheld Mohammed as the governor.
In the judgement delivered by a three-man panel led by Justice P. T. Kwahar, the Tribunal held that that there is no strong reason to nullify the election as it was conducted in compliance with the law.
INEC had in March declared that Mohammed polled 525,280 votes to beat Abubakar who scored 432,272 votes.