On Monday, the Taraba State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal reserved judgment on a petition filed by Professor Sani M. Yahya, candidate for the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), challenging the 2023 gubernatorial victory of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Governor Agbu Kefas.
Yahya is attempting to have the election he claims was tainted by irregularities thrown out of court.
Shortly after the parties in the suit adopted their last written addresses, the tribunal reserved decision.
Justice G.A. Sunmonu, the chairman of the panel, has promised to notify the parties as soon as a date is fixed for delivering judgement.
Lead counsel for the NNPP candidate, Barrister Ibrahim Ishaku, said anomalies that characterized the election prompted his client’s decision to seek redress at the tribunal as he fielded questions from journalists after the court session.
According to Ishaku, “a clear indication that results declared from some of the polling units were not authentic” was the reported inability of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BIVAS) equipment to certify voters throughout the election.
The attorney, who also claimed that the results had been rigged in the PDP’s favor, claimed that “over-voting in the state” was evident from the INEC’s official tally.
Ishiaku, who had previously asked for the election to be canceled, pointed out that INEC had acknowledged in its reports that violence caused by intermittent gunshots fired by military and police officers had disrupted the collation procedure.
Barrister Emeka Okoro, SAN, counsel to INEC, responded to Ishaku’s assertions in an interview with the media by saying that the law does not function on hearsay but on genuine proof.
Okoro argued that the petition had no basis in law and should be thrown down by the tribunal.
Barrister Kalu Agabi, SAN, counsel for the PDP, refuses to answer reporters’ questions despite repeated attempts to get in touch with him.
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