The Supreme Court has upheld the election of the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Darius Ishaku as the governor of Taraba State, dismissing an appeal by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Aisha Alhassan.
The Judge, Justice Bodeh-Rhode Vivore declared at the ruling today: “I am firmly of the view that there is no merit in this appeal. It is hereby refused.”
Justice Vivore led a seven-member panel.
He further ruled that the judgment of the court of Appeal is affirmed and the return of the first respondent as the governor of Taraba is affirmed.
Aisha Alhassan had approached the highest court to challenge the decision of the Appeal Court, which nullified the victory that was given to her by the Taraba State Election Tribunal.
A five-member panel of the Appeal Court in Abuja had on December 31 nullified the ruling of the Taraba State Election Tribunal on November 7, which declared Aisha Alhassan winner of the April 11 election of the state.
The tribunal had ruled that Ishaku was not nominated by his party, and therefore not qualified for the said election.
Counsel to the APC and its candidate, Abiodun Owonikoko, told the Supreme Court that the reason for the judgment of the tribunal, was that the important determinant for the sponsorship of a candidate for election, under the Nigerian Constitution, remained the conduct of a primaries by the sponsoring party.
“What is decisive of this appeal is the sponsorship as a ground to qualify for contesting in an election, by the constitution.”
Citing the previous judgments of the Supreme Court in the case against, Benue State’s Tarsus and Ortom, which was held on January 15, and another judgment regarding the case of Zamfara State’s Yari and Shinkafi, Owonikoko said that the applicants in the aforementioned appeals founded their application on an alleged lack of conduct of primaries by the respondents.
He said that their argument was that no primaries were conducted at all by the PDP, which would have resulted in the emergence of Ishaku as its candidate.
But counsel to Ishaku, Kanu Agabi, said the appeal court had in its ruling stated that the APC and its candidate were bound by their pleas, adding that the appellants had admitted in the third paragraphs of their applications that Ishaku was a member of the PDP and a candidate of the party in the April 11 elections of the state.
“The second respondent is a duly registered party and ‘sponsored’ by the first respondent,” he said, citing a quote from the appellant’s brief.
Agabi further said the appellants repeatedly fielded the first respondent as being sponsored by the PDP even as he told the court that they had presented 51 witnesses before the tribunal, who were not reviewed.
Also in his address, counsel to the PDP, Solo Ahmed, said that the party had never denied sponsoring Ishaku, adding that the appellants had submitted that there was no primary election, but went ahead to state that it (the primaries) was conducted in Abuja.
He further told the court that the previous judgments cited by Owonikoko had indicated that issues relating to the conduct of primaries in an election were pre-election matters that could only be contested by members of the party in question, or by INEC.
The counsel to INEC, Joseph Daudu, reiterated the point made by Ahmed, regarding the position of the APC on the conduct of primaries by the PDP.
According to Daudu, the APC’s claim that there was no primary election was premised on the contention that the primaries was conducted in Abuja. [myad]
