Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Gombe yesterday reserved ruling for a later date over the petition filled by the All Progressives Party, APC, governorship candidate, Alhaji Inuwa Yahaya, against the victory of Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, during the 2015 election.
Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Mohammad Siraj, said having concluded its session of adoption of final written addresses by counsels from both parties in the matter, it would resume sitting of its final judgement on a date to be fixed by both counsels.
Yahaya of APC had challenged the outcome of the election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in a petition to the tribunal, alleging that the election was marred by irregularities in six of the 11 local government areas of the state.
In an interview with journalists, lead counsel to the petitioner, Adeniyi Akintola (SAN), stated that the allegations outlined in the petition, which include absence of card readers, over-voting and other electoral malpractice as proven in the evidence were substantial enough to dissolve the entire election.
But counsel to Governor Dankwambo, Ibrahim Isiyaku (SAN), insisted that there was nothing whatsoever to upset the governorship election as was conducted in the state.
According to him, the issue of non-compliance to the Electoral Act as alleged by the petitioner was not substantial enough to affect the election results due to the wide gap in number of votes between his client and the petitioner.
On his part, counsel to INEC, Yahaya Dangana, said its position on the content of the petition was that there was no proof with respect to a lot of allegations by the petitioner.
He said the allegations were criminal and needed to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. “It is our opinion that the evidence before the tribunal does not prove all of those allegations, as such we say the petition should be dismissed,” he added.
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