S’Court Affirms Election of Sokoto Gov Aliyu

Alex Enumah in Abuja

The Supreme Court has affirmed the election of Ahmed Aliyu as Governor of Sokoto State.

The apex court, in a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Tijjani Abubakar, affirmed the election of Aliyu shortly after it dismissed the appeal by Saidu Umar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The apex court, in the unanimous judgment, held that the appellants did not demonstrate that the two lower courts were perverse in their judgments and did not also show evidence of miscarriage of justice.

Justice Abubakar subsequently dismissed the appeal for being incompetent and lacking in merit.

Umar and the PDP had listed nine grounds upon which they had asked the Supreme Court to set aside the concurrent judgments of the election petition tribunal and the Court of Appeal which affirmed the election of Aliyu as Governor of Sokoto State.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had, in March 2023, declared Aliyu and his party, the APC, winner of the Sokoto governorship election, having won majority of the lawful votes cast at the poll. 

Dissatisfied, Umar and PDP citing grounds such as malpractices, non-compliance as well as non-qualification, urged the tribunal to void the election of Aliyu as governor. 

On one hand, they prayed the tribunal to sack Aliyu and declare them authentic winner of the election, while on the other hand they urged that the election be declared inconclusive and a rerun in about 138 polling units be ordered.

But the three-member panel of justices of the tribunal, led by Justice Haruna Msheila, in a unanimous judgment delivered on September 30, 2023 dismissed the petition for lacking in merit. 

The tribunal held that the petitioners failed to prove the six grounds formulated in their joint petition. 

According to the tribunal, the grounds stated in the petition bordered on alleged ineligibility of Aliyu and his deputy to contest, falsification of certificates, variation of names, election frauds and non compliance with electoral guidelines.

The lower court held in its judgment that the petitioners were unable to prove the allegations beyond reasonable doubt as required by law, as 70 per cent of exhibits they tendered were out of context because they relate to state Assembly elections conducted on the same day.

Dissatisfied, Umar and PDP went to the Court of Appeal, which in its own judgment affirmed the decision of the tribunal. 

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

Aliyu had won the election with about 49,000 votes, while the total number of registered voters in the affected polling units where election was cancelled was put at over 85,000, total number of collected Permanent Voters Card (PVC) was put at over 82,000.

Based on the above, the appellants had urged the appellate court to void the election of Aliyu, declare the March 18 election inconclusive and that the electoral umpire be ordered to conduct a supplementary election in the 138 polling units where election was cancelled.

They had presented INEC’s form EC40G (incident form) showing elections were cancelled due to over-voting or disruption. 

In the lead judgment, the appellate court noted that the form EC40G, “shows the electorate were given opportunity to vote but something went wrong culminating in the cancellation of the election”.

While stating that he doesn’t think it was necessary to call any person to speak again to such documents in line with Section 137 of the Electoral Act, Justice Mbaba Bassi, who delivered the lead judgment, however, observed that precedence already set by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court in related matters demand that the appellants lead oral evidence to support the allegation of manipulation of votes through the cancellation of election in 138 polling units.

Based on this, Bassi had held that the tribunal was right in expunging evidence of non-compliance and other alleged irregularities and malpractices because the evidences were presented by incompetent witnesses. 

He further held that the failure of the appellants to list and front-load the statement of the witnesses was fatal to their case. Besides, the appellate court held that even though the appellants provided documents from INEC to prove cancellation of election in 138 polling units across the state, their failure to call witnesses from the affected polling units to speak to the documents was fatal to their case. 

Justice Bassi pointed out that reliance on Section 137 of the Electoral Act, 2022, was insufficient to prove cancellation without oral evidence.

On the issue of alleged certificate forgery, the appellate court similarly agreed with the tribunal that the appellants were unable to prove that the certificate submitted by the governor and his deputy were forged.

While observing that allegations of forgery are criminal in nature and as such must be proven beyond reasonable doubt, the panel stated that failure of the appellants to provide both the forged and original certificates before the court was fatal to their case.

Not satisfied yet, Umar and PDP approached the apex court to see how they can reverse the concurrent judgments of the two lower courts. 

The appellants, through their team of lawyers led by Mr Sunday Ameh (SAN), 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 Court of Appeal in its judgment ignored the Supreme Court’s pronouncement on the application of the provision of Section 137 of the Electoral Act, 2022,” they submitted.

According to the appellants, the Court of Appeal made a positive finding that the evidence on record before the court demonstrated that the non-compliance complained of by the appellants were manifest from the Certified True Copies of documents relied upon, adding that by the doctrine of judicial precedent, the Court of Appeal was bound without any discretion by the decision of the Supreme Court in OYETOLA V. INEC (Supra) and not recent authorities of the Court of Appeal as erroneously held at page 104 of its judgment on the same point that the Supreme Court had made positive pronouncement on. 

“The Supreme Court’s judgment in OYETOLA V. INEC ranks superior to the authorities of COLLINS VS INEC & ORS: (CA/AB)/EP/HR/IM/79/2023, delivered on 4/10/2023, and UKODHIKO VS PDP & ORS: CA/AS/EP/HR/OL/16/2023, delivered on 1/11/2023 heavily relied on by the Court of Appeal at page 104 of its Judgment”, they submitted. 

Ameh accordingly asked the apex court to allow the appeal and set aside the concurrent judgments that affirmed Aliyu as governor.

However, INEC, Aliyu and the APC prayed the apex court to dismiss the appeal for being incompetent and lacking in merit. 

They submitted that the two lower court’s judgments are impeccable and provide no ground for the apex court to deviate from.