In response to a petition brought by David Umbugadu, the PDP candidate for governor in the March 2023 election, against the governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule, his defence has been concluded.
The Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal was meeting in Lafia, the state capital, when Mubarak Adekilekun, the governor’s attorney, submitted an application to that effect.
21 witnesses testified in support of Governor Sule before the tribunal, and the governor requested to have his defence closed through the attorney he hired.
No objections were raised to the application by Jibrin Samuel Okutepa (SAN), Jibrin Muddie Dikko (SAN), Mathew Burkah (SAN) for the APC, or Ishaka Muddie Dikko (SAN), lead counsel for INEC.
Justice Ezekiel Ajayi, the tribunal’s chairman, granted the governor’s requests in his decision on the application.
Asserting that the votes cast for the APC were undercounted during collation in each of their wards, Governor Abdullahi Sule was backed by seven other witnesses.
The witnesses were Adamu Ibrahim Ottos from the Nasarawa LGA, Ibrahim Musa Mbada from Wamba, Ayuba Osu Obla from Agwada, Kokona LGA, Usman Sani from Kotoko in the Shege Electoral Ward, Rabiu Musa from Katakpa, Haruna Muhammad from Kenyehu, and Yohanna Faji from the Toto LGA.
The witnesses for the respondents claimed that INEC Presiding Officers used BVAS devices to verify voters and uploaded the results to iReV, alleging that the votes of their party, the APC, were undercounted during entry at the ward collation levels.
Jibrin Samuel Okutepa (SAN), the lead attorney for the PDP, requested to submit a CTC in form EC8 A for Kotoko Polling Unit 004, but all of the respondents’ attorneys objected, and Matthew Burkah (SAN), the attorney for the APC, confirmed that the document was new, had no signature, and listed the name of the INEC Presiding Officer.
Justice Ezekiel Ajayi, the tribunal’s chief judge, postponed the hearing so that APC could present its case on Wednesday or Thursday of the following week.
