The Bauchi State governorship election petitions tribunal sitting in Bauchi on Wednesday affirmed the election of Senator Bala Mohammed of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as governor of the state.
This is even as the tribunal dismissed the petition filed by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar who challenged the outcome of the March 18 governorship poll for lack of merit.
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Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on March 20 declared Mohammed the winner of the election at the end of the collation exercise.The electoral Commission announced that Mohammed polled 525,280 to ward off an ardent challenge from Mr Abubakar, who polled 432,272.
The candidate of the APC and his party approached the court challenging the result of the election, saying that there were non compliance with electoral act, electoral irregularities as well as bypass of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (B-VAS) machines in some polling units.
He also said that there were suppression of votes, inflation and deflation of scores and that the winner, Bala Mohammed was not duly elected by the majority of the voters.
Delivering the judgement, the Chairman of the three pannel Tribunal, Justice P.T Kwahar, said that the petitioner faulted the election in some polling units of Toro, Dass, Zaki, Itas-Gadau, Alkaleri, Bauchi, Tafawa Balewa, Ningi, Dambam and Ganjuwa Local Government Areas.
According to him, the petitioners failed to prove allegation with a tangible evidence to show that the B-VAS was truly manipulated.
Kwahar also said that the witnesses brought by the petitioner presented evidence based on hearsay as they were not present at the polling units, adding that they did not demonstrate enough to show that the results were mutilated, manipulated or tampered with as claimed.
He said they also failed to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the APC candidate won the election.
“The election of the 18th of March 2023 was conducted in total compliance with the electoral act and the petition is hereby dismissed.Consequently, the return of the second respondent as the truly elected governor of Bauchi state by the first respondent in the conduct of the governorship election of the 18th of March, 2023 is hereby affirmed” he said.
