Governor Hyacinth Alia of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has been declared duly elected by the Benue State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Makurdi, the state capital.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate in the March 18 election, Titus Uba, had their lawsuit challenging Alia’s victory rejected by the judiciary.
According to Section 285 of the Electoral Act, the three-person panel of judges chaired by Justice Ibrahim Karaye ruled that the tribunal lacked authority to hear the petition.
With 473,933 votes to Uba’s 223,913, Alia was proclaimed the winner of the poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Uba, dissatisfied with the results of the election, petitioned the court to overturn Alia’s victory.
The tribunal ruled that the petitioner should have taken his claims before INEC, where the petitioner may have challenged the APC’s nomination of Governor Alia and the allegations of a counterfeit certificate and misleading information on Form EC9 against his deputy, Sam Ode.
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