Taye Obateru
26 February 2008
Lagos — THE Court of Appeal in Jos yesterday, upheld the decision of the Adamawa State Elections Petitions Tribunal nullifying the election of Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd.), as governor of the state, and ordered him to vacate office immediately.
It also directed that the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mr. James Barka be sworn in as Acting Governor. He was accordingly sworn in last night in Yola.
The court, however, upheld the elections of Governor Jonah Jang (Plateau) and Mamman Ali (Yobe State) having thrown out the appeals by petitioners who had lost at the petition tribunals in their states. The judgements were delivered by three different justices of the court in less than two hours.
Delivering judgement on the appeal filed by Admiral Nyako against the judgement of the tribunal, Justice Ayo Salami leading four other judges said the state election petitions tribunal was right to have nullified the election as the exclusion of the candidate of Action Congress (AC) Alhaji Ibrahim Bapetel was against the Electoral Act.
He said the grounds of appeal having failed, Nyako should vacate office immediately and directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct another election within 90 days which should include Bepetel, saying his exclusion from the governorship election held on April 14 last year was unlawful. The court awarded N60,000 costs against Nyako in favour of each of the respondents.
In the same vein, the court upheld the decision of the Plateau State Election Tribunal which dismissed the petition filed by the AC governorship candidate, Pam Dung Gyang on the ground that the petition was filed after the 30 days stipulated by the Electoral Act.
Justice J. S. Agwatu, who read the judgement said the appeal lacked merit and stands dismissed.
A similar position was taken by Justice Mohamed Garba while delivering judgement in the appeal filed by Alhaji Adamu Waziri of the PDP against the decision of the Yobe election petitions tribunal that the lower tribunal was right in upholding Ali's election and struck out the appeal for lack of merit.
It was a mixed reaction for supporters of the various parties as those who won jubilated while those who lost wore long faces. The major streets adjoining the Court of Appeal building were filled with vehicles as early as 7.30 a.m. resulting in traffic jam.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
