Appeal Court Upholds Senator Sani’s Election, Dismisses PDP’s Petition

A Court of Appeal sitting in Kaduna State has upheld the election of Senator Uba Sani as the lawmaker representing Kaduna Central senatorial district in the National Assembly.

Senator Sani, a former political adviser to Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State won the February 23 National Assembly election in the zone with 355,242 votes.

He defeated his closest rival in the poll, Lawal Adamu, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 197,497 votes.

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Adamu and his party had petitioned the Election Petitions Tribunal alleging that the exercise was marred by massive rigging, ballot-box stuffing and snatching, as well as intimidation of voters among other claims.

The Tribunal had dismissed their petition for lack of merit but the appellants were not satisfied with the judgement, prompting them to challenge the verdict at the appeal court.

In a unanimous judgment delivered on Monday, the appellate court dismissed Adamu’s suit for lacking in merit and upheld Senator Sani’s election.

The court agreed with the August 24 judgement of the Tribunal which ruled that the petitioners failed to provide substantial evidence of all the allegations contained in their petition.

Following the ruling of the court, counsels to the PDP and its candidate did not react.

Counsel to Senator Sani, Sule Shuiabu, on his part, described the judgement as victory for democracy and rule of law.

He added that both judgments by the Tribunal and the Appellate Court were a clear affirmation of the wish of the people of Kaduna Central district who voted overwhelmingly for his client.