Supreme Court reserves judgment in Sokoto guber appeal

• Both the election petitions tribunal and the appeal court had earlier in their rulings dismissed the petitions of the PDP candidate, Sai’du Umar, affirming the election of Ahmed Aliyu as the governor of the state

The Supreme Court has reserved judgment on the Sokoto State governorship election dispute between Ahmed Aliyu Sokoto of the All Progressives Congress ( APC) and Sai’du Umar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The five-man panel led by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun reserved the judgment after parties in the petition adopted their processes.

Recalled that both the election petitions tribunal and the appeal court had earlier in their rulings dismissed the petitions of the PDP candidate, Sai’du Umar, affirming the election of Ahmed Aliyu as the governor of the state.

Umar and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party listed nine grounds upon which they are asking the Supreme Court to set aside the concurrent judgments of the election petition tribunal and the Court of Appeal which affirmed the election of Ahmed Aliyu as Governor of Sokoto.

In the appeal, filed on their behalf by their team of lawyers led by Mr Sunday Ameh, SAN, the appellants claimed that “the judgment of the Court of Appeal is against the weight of evidence”, and as such should be set aside by the apex court.

The three-member panel of the appellate court had in a unanimous judgment last year held that the appellants failed to substantiate allegations of irregularities, noncompliance as well as non-qualification contained in their appeal.