The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has upturned the verdict of the Taraba Election Petition Tribunal which ruled in favour of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Aisha Alhassan.
Alhassan, currently a minister in the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, had petitioned the tribunal against the electoral victory of Governor Darius Ishaku. She won at the tribunal which declared her the winner of the election.
But in the appeal filed by Ishaku, the court ruled on Thursday that the method of nomination of a candidate should not be a ground for the disqualification of the election as stated in the constitution and the electoral act.
The Appeal Court also ruled that Alhassan was not in the best position to argue concerning how Ishaku was nominated as she was not a member of the party that nominated Ishaku.
The court said the tribunal should not have entertained the matter of how Ishaku was nominated since it was a pre-election matter and only the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and members of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who participated in the primary election that threw up Ishaku that have the right to complain.
Answering what it called the most important question that had to do with whether the appellant (Ishaku) was a member of PDP and was sponsored by the party for the gubernatorial election, the Appeal Court ruled that Ishaku was validly nominated candidate of the PDP for the election and that he participated in the election.
The Appeal Court also described as perverse the decision of the tribunal not to take into consideration the testimony of the appellant's witnesses that the PDP primary election was shifted to Abuja because of security situation in the state then.
According to the Appeal Court, if the Tribunal decides that a candidate elected at an election was not validly nominated, it can nullify the victory, it should order for fresh election and not declare the petitioner the winner of the poll.
The Appeal Court said it was a gross misdirection for the Tribunal to declare the APC candidate winner of the election on the basis that he secured the second highest number of votes.
Overturning the judgement of the Tribunal, the Appeal Court held that Ishaku was validly elected as Governor of Taraba State and his certificate of return remains valid.
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