Appeal Court Dismisses Binani’s Petition Against Gov Fintiri

By Garry Ochigbo

The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Monday dismissed the petition by the All Progressives Congress, APC, and its governorship candidate, Senator Aisha Dahiru Binani seeking to invalidate the election of Umar Ahmadu Fintiri as the duly elected governor of Adamawa State.

The Appellate Court held that Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP was lawfully declared winner of the poll by the Adamawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.

A judgment written by Justice Tunde Oyebanji Awotoye threw out the case of Binani and APC on various grounds of abnormalities.

Among the grounds, the Appeal Court held that Binani and APC failed to call Polling Agents who participated in the conduct of the election as witnesses but unfortunately called Campaign Coordinators who were not at the election venue.

Justice Awotoye said that the three witnesses called to establish malpractices in 27 Local Government Areas who were Campaign Coordinators are mere hearsay witnesses having not been party agents.

Besides, Justice Awotoye said that the brief of argument filed by Binani and APC was in contravention of the law, hence, incompetent and deserved to be ignored.

The Court declared as an illegal act, the declaration of Binani and APC as winners of the election adding that the only authority to make the declaration is the Returning Officer.

The Court also said that it was wrong for Binani to be taking Panadol for the headache of the Resident Electoral Commissioner who opted to take laws into his own hand.

The unanimous judgment dismissed the appeal in its entirety and award a cost of N1M to be paid to Fintiri and PDP by Binani and APC.

The Adamawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal had, in October, dismissed the petition filed by Binani seeking Fintiri’s sack from office.

Edited By Grace Namiji