Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has reserved judgment in an appeal brought by Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule of All Progressives Congress (APC), against the majority decision of a tribunal nullifying his election, in favour of David Ombugadu of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

A three-member panel of justices headed by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam told parties in the matter that the date for judgment would be communicated to them.

At yesterday’s proceedings, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), counsel to Sule, after adoption of five processes filed in the appeal, urged the court to dismiss the judgment of the tribunal and allow the appeal of his client.

Olanipekun argued that the tribunal refused to take the submissions of the defendants’ witnesses during the hearing and that data from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) tendered to the tribunal were merely dumped without proper explanation.

In his response, after adopting his processes, Kanu Agabi (SAN), counsel to Ombugadu and the PDP, urged the appellate court to dismiss the appeal against the tribunal judgment, stating that their evidence was merely documentary.

On the issue of BVAS, Agabi argued that it was sufficiently demonstrated in the tribunal as demanded by laws, with the various printouts from the machine shown, against the argument that they were merely dumped.

Agabi, who referred the court to the judgment of the tribunal, argued that in delivering judgment, the lower court painstakingly gave a clear breakdown of how it arrived at its decision.

Sule had filed the Notice of Appeal against the judgment of the lower court that nullified his declaration as winner of March 18, 2023 governorship election in Nasarawa, while declaring PDP’s Ombugadu as the lawful winner of the election.

He rejected the judgment by Justice Ezekiel Ajayi, describing its position as unmeritorious and devoid of evidential support base or pillars, even as vowed to appeal the majority decision over the minority judgment of Justice Ibrahim Mashi.