Supreme court reserves judgment in appeal seeking to sack Kebbi governor

The supreme court has reserved judgment in an appeal seeking to sack Nasir Idris as Kebbi state governor.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the March 18 Kebbi gubernatorial election inconclusive owing to “massive vote cancellation and overvoting” in 20 of the 21 LGAs in the state.

The electoral commission later fixed April 15 for a supplementary election. 

At the end of the exercise, Idris, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), scored 409,225 votes to beat Aminu Bande of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who got 360,940 votes. 

Bande and his party rejected the result and filed a petition before the tribunal.

The petitioners alleged that there was over-voting in some polling units and that Idris was not qualified to contest the poll.

They also alleged that the deputy governor had submitted a fake secondary school testimonial to INEC.

However, in the judgment, Ofem Ofem, the chairman of the tribunal, held that the petitioners failed to prove beyond doubt that the third respondent (deputy governor) presented a fake certificate to INEC.

On the issue of over-voting, Ofem said out of the 59 polling units being questioned, irregularities were discovered in nine.

The panel deducted 1,735 votes from APC while over 900 votes were also taken away from PDP’s results.

The chairman, however, said the deduction of the votes would not affect the margin between the election winner and the runner-up.

He added that there was no substantial evidence to prove over-voting and irregularities in other polling units.

Other allegations were dismissed and Idris was affirmed the duly elected governor of the state.

The court of appeal also affirmed the governor’s election.

Aggrieved, the PDP candidate appealed to the apex court to quash the governor’s victory.

After hearing the submission of parties in the appeal, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, who led a five-member panel of the apex court, reserved judgment.