Appeal Court affirms Gov Idris’ election in Kebbi

The Court of Appeal, Abuja, on Friday, upheld Governor Nasir Idris’ victory in the Kebbi State governorship election.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the March 18 election inconclusive due to over-voting in 20 local government areas of the state.

The commission later fixed April 15 for a supplementary election.

Idris of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared the winner of the election after he scored 409,225 votes to defeat his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rival, Aminu Bande, who got 360,940 votes in the exercise.

Bande and his party rejected the result and approached the state governorship election petition tribunal to set it aside on three grounds.

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, Abubakar Umar Tafida, had submitted a fake secondary school testimonial to INEC.

The tribunal dismissed the petition for lack of merit.

READ ALSO: Tribunal upholds election of Nasir Idris as Kebbi Gov

Dissatisfied with the verdict, the petitioners approached the appeal court to nullify the outcome of the election.

In Friday’s proceeding, a three-member panel of the appellate court headed by Justice Ndukwe Anyanwu, dismissed the appeal for lack of merit.

The panel resolved all the five issues raised in the appeal against the appellants.

The court held that Bande and his party failed to establish all the allegations brought up against the governor in their petition.

It held that the allegations of forgery of testimonial brought against the deputy governor not be established as required by law.

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