Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has filed a cross-appeal at the Court of Appeal sitting in the state capital, asking it to reverse the controversial alternative ruling of the Governorship Election Tribunal, ordering a supplementary poll in the state.<\/p>\n
Despite emerging victorious from the main ruling of the tribunal, delivered on September 28, the governor, who contested under the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), is contesting the alternative majority ruling of two against one, which created a path for the candidate of the People\u2019s Democratic Party (PDP) Isah Ashiru to claim victory
\nAlso, in his appeal filed to the court of appeal, Ashiru provided 24 grounds to upturn the dismissal of his petition. He is also seeking an order of the higher court to invalidate Sani\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n
The cross-appeal was filed by Governor Sani\u2019s legal team led by a former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Bayo Ojo (SAN).<\/p>\n
According to Ojo, the tribunal threw the political space into a spin when, in a double majority decision, dismissed Ashiru\u2019s petition for fatal non-compliance with the regulating laws, before proceeding to give an alternative ruling, favoring the petitioners.<\/p>\n
He insisted that the dismissal of the petition gave substantive victory to the governor. Ojo further listed 14 grounds of errors committed by the tribunal in arriving at its second conclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe five reliefs he is seeking from the intermediate court include an order setting aside the majority decision of the Kaduna State Governorship Election Petition ordering supplementary election in 22 polling units or any unit whatsoever delivered on Thursday, 28th of September, 2023, by Hon. Justices K.D Damulak and Victoria T. Nwoye.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn order dismissing the alternative reliefs of the petition for a supplementary election in any polling unit in Kaduna State which was granted by the tribunal.
\n\u201cAn order striking out the 1st and 2nd cross respondents\u2019 (PDP and Isa) petition for being statue barred.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn order striking out the 1st and 2nd cross respondents\u2019 petition for non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022.
\n\u201cAn order allowing the cross-appeal.
\nRegistering his grievance with the judgement, the governor pointed out the portions he is kicking against, including:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe part of the majority decision granting the alternative reliefs of the 1st and 2nd cross-respondents, ordering the conduct of supplementary election in 22 polling units in Kaduna State.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the decision of the Tribunal dismissing the cross-appellant\u2019s (Uba and APC) objection to the competence of the petition on account of being statte-barred.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the decision of the Tribunal dismissing the cross-appellant\u2019s motion challenging the petition on account of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022\u201d.<\/p>\n
In his grounds of appeal, Uba through Ojo noted that; \u201cthe learned trial judges erred in law when they failed and\/or refused to pronounce on the cross-appellant\u2019s Motion on Notice, seeing the tribunal\u2019s order to pronounce on the cross-appellant\u2019s preliminary objection before taking further steps in the proceeding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe learned trial judges erred in law when they relied on documents which were legally inadmissible to hold that the number of permanent voters\u2019 cards collected in some polling units were more than the margin of lead between the cross-appellant and the 1st and 2nd respondents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe learned trial judges erred in law when they placed reliance on the Forms EC40G series, which are legally inadmissible in law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe learned trial judges erred in law when they placed reliance on the Forms EC40G series when their makers were neither called as witnesses nor any witness called from the respective polling units they relate to.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe learned trial judges erred in law when after finding that the FORMS EC40G series were riddled with discrepancies still proceeded to rely on these discrepant FORMS EC40G series to ordersupplementary elections in the polling units.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe learned trial judges erred in law and breached the cross-appellant\u2019s right to a fair hearing when they appropriated one of the 1st and 2nd respondents\u2019 witnesses (PW 1) as a witness of the Tribunal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe learned trial judges of the Tribunal (Coram: Hon. Justices V.O.A Oviawe, K.D Damulak and Victoria T. Nwoye) erred in law when they suo moto concluded that the date of declaration of results of the Governorship Election was excluded thereby necessitating their decision that the petition was filed within the 21 days\u2019 period\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has filed a cross-appeal at the Court of Appeal sitting in the state capital, asking it to reverse the controversial alternative ruling of the Governorship Election Tribunal, ordering a supplementary poll in the state. Despite emerging victorious from the main ruling of the tribunal, delivered on September 28, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":48420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-48419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-law-and-politics"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_0840.jpeg?fit=650%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48421,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48419\/revisions\/48421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}