Election Tribunal Sacks Speaker of Plateau House of Assembly

Seriki Adinoyi in Jos

The National and State Houses of Assembly Elections Petitions Tribunal sitting in Jos, yesterday, sacked the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Moses Sule who is also the lawmaker representing the Mikang State constituency.

The speaker, who was elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was sacked alongside Danjuma Azi, the member representing Jos North-West constituency in the Assembly.

In their place, the tribunal declared Hon. Naanlong Daniel and Hon. Mark Na’ah, both of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winners of March 18 elections in Mikang and Jos North-West constituencies respectively.

The petitioners had challenged the sponsorship of  Sule and Azi on the grounds that the PDP was not qualified to participate in the election for lack of party structure.

Nullifying the speaker’s election yesterday, the tribunal ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw the certificate of return earlier issued to Sule and give the same to the candidate of the APC, Nanlong, who scored the second-highest number of votes cast in the election.

The tribunal held that the PDP disobeyed the order of Justice S P Gang of Plateau State High Court delivered on November 26, 2020 which ordered the party to conduct ward congresses.

Justice Muhammad Tukur said that INEC failed to tender any authentic document to show that there was repeated congress by the party in 2021, as claimed by the respondents.