The Court of Appeal sitting in Yola yesterday dismissed the petition of the All Progressive Congress, APC challenging the election of Gov. Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo of Gombe state.
In the judgement delivered by Justice H. M. Ogunwumiju, the court dismissed for lack of merit, the appeal instituted by Alhaji Inuwa Mohammed Yahaya, APC gubernatorial candidate, challenging the election of Dankwambo, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP on the grounds of corrupt practices against the Electoral Act.
The election into the governorship seat of Gombe state was conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the third respondent in the Appeal, who returned Dankwambo, after polling the highest number of valid votes.
The court resolved 12 issues to reach its decision, out of which 9 were resolved in favour of Gov. Dankwambo and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP as the 1st and 2nd respondent respectively.
The first issue which dealt with whether the trial tribunal was right to have upheld the victory of Gov. Dankwambo, of the PDP, the learned justice, while resolving the issue against the appellant upheld that the petitioner “must succeed on the strength of his case and not on the weakness of the respondent, adding that she cannot find fault with the decision of the tribunal.
On whether the appellant proved the issues of substantial non-compliance of the election with the electoral act, the learned justices comprising of Justice F.O. Oho Saul, J.T. Tur and U. A. Ogakwu, averred in the unanimous verdict that the appeal was unmeritorious for lacking in merit.
It stressed that the evidence adduced by the APC gubernatorial candidate is not enough to overturn the ruling of the trial tribunal.
Although, it subtracted 7,000 votes from the votes cast for Dankwambo, however, the learned justice maintained that the scale still tilted favourably towards him because the margin of lawful votes between him and the candidate of the APC still stood at 70,000, in favour of Dankwambo, Justice Ogunwumiju stated in her summary ruling which lasted over 2 hours.
Justice Ogakwu in his contribution, said it would be a mirage to think there would be a perfect election and charged politicians to observe certain basic minimum whenever they want to challenge any election on the grounds of substantial non- compliance with the electoral act.
He said when an election is being challenged for non-compliance with the electoral act, the petitioner must prove by advancing credible evidence that the winner emerged through non-compliance. The court also awarded a cost of N50, 000 against the appellant.
The Speaker of the Gombe state House of Assembly, Alhaji Nasiru Nunu while reacting to the judgement called on the APC to accept the verdict and join hands with the Governor to develop the state, in the interest of its citizenry.
