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 panel ruled against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and their governorship candidate in the March 18 election, Titus Uba.
The three-judge panel, chaired by Justice Ibrahim Karaye, ruled that the tribunal lacked the authority to hear the petition because the problems at hand related to the time period before the election, which is forbidden under Section 285 of the Electoral Act.
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 the allegations of a fake certificate and misleading information on Form EC9 against Governor Alia’s deputy, Sam Ode, and the petitioner’s own non-qualification before INEC.
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