Tribunal orders removal of PDP senator in Taraba

The election petition tribunal sitting in Jalingo, Taraba state, has nullified the election of Bashir Marafa, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmaker representing Taraba central senatorial district.

The tribunal held that the election of Marafa could not stand, because he did not score the lawful majority votes in the March 28 election.

Suleiman Yusuf, one of the tribunal’s members, read the three-hour judgment.

He ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue the certificate of return to Yusuf Abubakar of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The tribunal said Abubakar scored the majority lawful votes during the March 28 poll.

It said the petitioners, whose main complaint was non-inclusion of results in 16 polling units in Kaigamma ward in Bali local government area in the overall result, had substantially proved their case.

The tribunal said the swapping of the results of Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate with the ones of the PDP’s candidates in Takalafiya ward was also substantially proven.

According to it, the alleged cancellation of results at collation centres, after the presiding officer had announced same results at the polling units, contravened the electoral law.

It said that non-inclusion of the results of 16 polling units where elections were credibly conducted and announced was also against the law.

The tribunal held that after re-collation of the results, Abubakar scored 66,097 votes ahead of Marafa who had 64,356 votes.