By Akinwale Kasali
Wild jubilation by supporters and members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, greeted the declaration by the Supreme Court of Governor Lawal Dauda as the duly elected Governor of Zamfara State.
Lawal of the People’s Democratic Party, was declared the winner of the March 18 Governorship election. But the then incumbent Governor, Bello Matawalle of the All Progressives Congress, APC, now the Minister of Defence, and Lawal went upto the Supreme Court for the final verdict.
The Court of Appeal which sat in Abuja had, on November 16, 2023, sacked Dauda following an appeal filed by Matawalle.
Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had after the March 18 governorship poll declared Dauda as the governor-elect, after he garnered 377,726 votes.
The incumbent Governor at the time, Matawalle, secured 311,976 votes.
Bello approached the Zamfara State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal Sokoto, with a petition against Dauda’s election.
Matawalle’s legal team led by Akinlola Kehinde alleged wrongful collation of election results, including those of Maradun LGA.
He also argued that elections were not held in several wards in the state without any reason given by INEC.
But the Tribunal affirmed Dauda’s election and dismissed Matawalle’s appeal for lacking in merit.
After losing his second term bid, Matawalle was appointed as Minister Of State, Defence, by President Bola Tinubu.
But he went on to appeal the verdict of the Tribunal, arguing that Dauda did not score the majority of lawful votes cast during the governorship poll and that the election was inconclusive.
He contended that the Tribunal erroneously struck out evidence tendered by his witnesses including several paragraphs in his petition.
But the PDP countered Matawalle, contending that he failed to prove his petition against Dauda’s election victory.
A three-man panel of the Appeal court led by Justice Oyebisi Folayemi, declared: “It is our view that the order of the Trial Tribunal striking out several paragraphs of the appellants petition was erroneous.”
On the tribunal striking out the evidence (PW1 and PW17) tendered by Matawalle as hearsay, the appellate court held that it was evidently seen from the polling units results used by INEC that the result sheets were not signed by party agents of the appellants.
More so, the Appeal Court held that the evidence of Matawalle’s two witnesses (LG collation agents), contrary to the Tribunal’s position, are linked to the specific aspects of the appellants case.
The Appeal court maintained that in line with the Electoral Act, it shall not be necessary for a party who alleges non compliance with relevant laws, to call oral evidence if their exhibits show the same allegations.
The Appeal Court observed that the documents INEC relied on to declare results in Maradun LGA were mutilated, and as such, the same exhibits tendered by Matawalle before the Tribunal were not hearsay evidence.
“This Court resolves this issue in favour of the appellants.,” the court held.
The Appeal Court further held that the tribunal failed to properly evaluate the evidence brought before it and that the appellants placed credible evidence before the tribunal.
The Court subsequently held that the appellants successfully proved that Dauda was not duly elected, and that the INEC Results Viewing Portal(IREV) cannot be used in collating results as done by the Tribunal.
“This appeal is hereby allowed.
“The March 2023 Governorship election held in Zamfara State is inconclusive and the return of Dauda is set aside.
“INEC is hereby directed to hold fresh elections in Maradun, Birnin Magaji and Bukun Yum LGA,” the appeal court held.
But reading the lead judgment on Friday, Justice Agim Emmanuel, held Matawalle’s legal team never tendered its duplicate copies of the INEC Forms EC8A in dispute, yet the Court of Appeal erroneously held they provided evidence.
He observed that the certified copy of the polling units results in dispute did not show any form of overvoting.
Emmanuel held that the Tribunal was right while the Appeal Court’s decision on the Governor’s election was “perverse”.
The Judge held that polling units and ward results supported the results as declared by INEC.
“The appeal has merit and is hereby allowed,” Emmanuel said while setting aside the judgment of the Appeal Court.
