The Zamfara State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja has upheld the election of Governor Bello Mohammed Matawalle of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
The tribunal, in a judgment on Monday, dismissed a petition, marked EPT/ZM/GOV/2019, filed by Muhammed Sani Takori of the Advanced People’s Democratic Alliance (APDA) against Matawalle, the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Takori and APDA in the petition prayed the tribunal to nullify the emergency of Mattawale as governor on the ground that he did not score two-thirds of the votes cast in the local government areas of the state as required by law.
Petitioners also queries the declaration of substantial votes cast on the election day as waste.
Led by Justice Binta Zubair, the tribunal held that the petition was without merit owing to the decision by the Supreme Court on May 24, 2019, to the effect that the votes cast for candidates who ought not to have participated in an election are wasted votes that cannot be used in determining the outcome of an election.
The tribunal held that by implication, the votes cast for Governor Matawalle and his party, are the lawful votes as far as the March 9, governorship election in Zamfara state is concerned.
The tribunal disagreed with the petitioner that governor Mutawalle did not win votes in two-third of the local government areas of Zamfara state adding that the petitioners wrongly predicated his argument on the votes already declared as waste by the apex court.
Earlier, the tribunal dismissed Takori’s objection, in which he argued that the PDP did not conduct any primaries and that Mutawalle was not duly sponsored by his party, and therefore was not qualified to contest for the governorship election in the first place.
The tribunal, while dismissing the objection, held that the issue of nomination and sponsorship of a candidate was the sole responsibility of the political party and also a pre-election issue, on which it lacked jurisdiction.
It awarded a N500,000 cost against the petitioners to be paid to Mattawale as cost of litigation.
INEC had declared Muktar Idris of All Progressives Congress as winner of Zamfara governorship election held on March 9, 2019.
Announcing the result, the Returning Officer, Prof. Kabir Bala, said, Muktar secured 534,541 votes out of the 810,782 votes cast across the 14 local government areas of the state while Bello Matawalle of Peoples Democratic Party PDP came second with 189,452.
The participation of the candidates of the APC in the governorship, National Assembly and the State House of Assembly was invalidated by the Supreme Court on the ground that the candidates were not properly nominated as required by law.
Supreme Court declared the votes cast for APC candidates as wasted and held that the candidates of the party that came second should be declared winners.
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