Tribunal affirms APC’s Nasir Idris as Kebbi governor, dismisses PDP petition

The Kebbi state governorship election petition tribunal has affirmed Nasir Idris as the duly elected governor.

The three-member tribunal dismissed the petition by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Aminu Bande.

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, Nasiru, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), scored 409,225 votes to beat Bande, who got 360,940 votes. 

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

In the petition, 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.

Ofem added that the evidence presented showed that the testimonial in question was duly signed and issued to him by the then principal of Sultan Abubakar College, Sokoto in 1982.

The tribunal chairman described the documents presented by the petitioners as “iron cast evidence” saying, “we state categorically that the third respondent did not forge certificate”.

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.

Ofem further maintained that the petitioners had failed to prove that the governor did not retire from the state civil service one month before contesting the governorship election.

  “Governor Nasir Idris is duly elected and returned as governor of Kebbi state in the March governorship election held across the state,” the tribunal chairman announced.