Appeal Court sacks Zamfara governor, orders rerun in three LGAs

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has declared as inconclusive, the governorship election that was held in Zamfara State on March 18.

In a unanimous decision, the three-member panel led by Justice Oyebisi Folayemi, and supported by Justice Cordelia Ifeoma Jombo-Ofo and Justice Sybil Nwaka Gbagi yesterday nullified the return of Governor Dauda Lawal of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the winner of the governorship poll.

Justice Nwaka, who read the lead judgment, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a fresh election in three Local Government Areas of the state, where elections had not been held previously or where results from various polling units were not counted. The affected LGAs are Maradun, Birnin-Magaji and Bukkuyum.

The court held that it was wrong for INEC to rely on information it obtained from its INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal to collate the final result of the governorship election.

The judgment followed an appeal that was brought before the court by the immediate past governor of the state, Bello Matawalle, who was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the election. Matawalle was later appointed by President Bola Tinubu as the Minister of State for Defence.

According to INEC, Matawalle was roundly defeated with over 65,000 votes. Specifically, INEC credited Lawal with 377,726 votes, while Matawalle was said to have scored 311,976 votes. The tribunal on September 18 upheld Lawal’s election, but Matawalle proceeded to the Appeal Court.

Palpable tension has enveloped the premises of the Court of Appeal in Abuja while the judges sat for hours to announce their decision. Around the court, there was heavy presence of security personnel to ward off possible breakdown of law and order after the judgment.

A group of sympathizers and political associates of the two groups had earlier stormed the court as early as 8:00a.m. but were restricted to a far distance by heavily armed mobile policemen.