Appeal Court Reserves Judgement In Nasarawa Governorship Case

By Garry Ochigbo

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has reserved judgment in an appeal brought by Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule of the APC against the majority decision by a tribunal nullifying his election, in favour of David Ombugadu, candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.

A three-member panel of justices headed by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam told parties involved that the date for judgment will be communicated.

In the actual proceedings, Wole Olanipekun, counsel to Sule who filed five processes to challenge the appeal urged the Court to dismiss the judgment of the Tribunal and allow the appeal of his client.

Olanipekun argued that the Tribunal refused to take the submissions of their witnesses during the Tribunal hearing and that data from the BVAS tendered to the Tribunal were merely dumped without been considered as evidence.

In his response, after adopting his processes, Kanu Agabi, counsel to Ombugadu and the PDP urged the Court to dismiss the appeal against the Tribunal judgment stating that their evidence were merely documentary.

On the issue of BVAS, Agabi argued that it was sufficiently demonstrated in the Tribunal as demanded by law, with the print out from the machine shown, against the argument that they were merely dumped without being analysed.

Agabi who referred the court to the judgment of the Tribunal argued that in delivering judgment, the lower court painstakingly gave a breakdown of how it arrived at its decision.

Edited By Grace Namiji