Tribunal sacks Jerry Gana’s son from house of reps, orders supplementary polls

The Niger state national and state houses of assembly election petitions tribunal has sacked Joshua Gana from the house of representatives.

Joshua, son of Jerry Gana, a former minister of information, was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Edati/Lavun/Mokwa federal constituency of Niger state in the February 25 elections.

He was declared the winner after polling 47,942 votes to defeat Abdullahi Gbatamagi, candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), who garnered 40,003 votes.

But the APC and its candidate, Gbatamagi, lodged a petition at the tribunal through their counsel, Johnson Usman, to challenge Gana’s victory.

The petitioners alleged that the election was invalid by reason of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022.

They added that the margin of win was less than the permanent voter cards (PVCs) collected in the polling units where elections did not hold or were cancelled.

Delivering the judgment on Monday, a three-member tribunal headed by Sylvester Godspower agreed with the submissions of the petitioners.

The tribunal invalidated votes in the 26 polling units of the constituency, thereby reducing the votes of Gana to 46,494 while those of Gbatamagi were reduced to 39,159.

The panel’s action left the PVCs collected in the affected polling units at 14,411.

Consequently, the tribunal set aside the certificate of return issued to Gana and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a supplementary election in the 26 polling units within 90 days.