3 July 2008
analysis
The protracted legal tussle between Rep Samaila Mohammed of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and James Yakubu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the Jos North/Basa federal constituency has been finally laid to rest as the Court of Appeal sitting in Jos has affirmed the election of Mohammed.
Rep Mohammed was declared winner by INEC but Yakubu had petitioned the victory at the election petition tribunal in Jos which upheld Mohammed's election.
Not satisfied with the outcome, Yakubu had appealed the verdict to the Court of Appeal sitting in Jos. His grounds of appeal was that Rep Mohammed was not validly nominated by his party. However, the appellate court dismissed the appeal and affirmed the election of Mohammed.
Justice Uzon Anyanwu who gave the judgment, said the decision of the lower tribunal was correct because the grounds of the petition are those of nomination, sponsorship and qualification all of which are pre-election matters.
The presiding Judge also said that from records available before the court, ANPP had duly nominated Mohammed, stressing that Yakubu has no grounds to challenge the qualification of Mohammed for the elec-tion as it is only INEC that can do that.
The court also agreed with the verdict of the tribunal, when it ruled that Yakubu cannot question the nomination and sponsorship of Moahmmed who is in the ANPP, because according to it, both matters were internal issues that only the ANPP can decide.
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