Taraba: Appeal court reverse APC candidate Senator Alhassan's victory.

  

The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Thursday reversed the judgment of the Taraba State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which had on November 7, 2015 sacked Governor Darius Ishaku of the Peoples Democratic Party and ordered the All Progressives Congress’ governorship candidate in the state, Aisha Alhassan, to be sworn in in his stead.

In the lead judgment read by the presiding Justice of the five-man bench, Justice Abdul Aboki, the appeal court held that Alhassan and the APC had no legal right to challenge the alleged improper conduct of the primary which produced Ishaku as the PDP’s candidate.

Alhassan and his party had approached the tribunal challenging the declaration of Ishaku of the PDP as the winner of the April 11 poll with 369,318 votes against their 275,984 votes polled by them in the election.

In its judgment on the petition, the Justice Danladi Abubakar-led tribunal had, in its judgment on November 7, sacked Ishaku on the grounds that he was not duly sponsored by his party as required by law and ordered that Alhassan be issued a new Certificate of Return and be sworn in as governor.

The unanimous judgment of the tribunal held that the conduct of the primary which produced Ishaku as the governorship candidate of the party failed to satisfy the provisions of sections 85 and 87 of the Electoral Act 2010.

The tribunal anchored its judgment on, among other grounds, that the PDP’s primary was conducted in Abuja instead of Jalingo, the state capital, without approval by INEC and that the party failed to give the notice for the conduct of the exercise within at least 21 days before the date fixed for it.

But the tribunal had dismissed the other leg of the petition which alleged over-voting and substantial non-compliance of the conduct of the poll with the Electoral Act.