Tribunal upholds Yuguda’s election

Posted by admin Arts/Culture & Entertainment, Bauchi, Headlines, State News Friday, November 11th, 2011

The Bauchi Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Bauchi yesterday upheld the election of Governor Isa Yuguda of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of the state as the duly elected candidate during the April 28 gubernatorial election.

Dissatisfied with the result announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Yusuf Maitama Tuggar of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) had refused to concede defeat.

On May 5, Tuggar filed petition challenging the declaration of Yuguda as the duly elected governor of the state before the tribunal alleging widespread irregularities.
Tuggar, in the suit, expressed confidence that the forensic checks on disputed ballots and other elections malpractices, especially how the votes in the 20 local government areas of the state were tallied and would overturn the results of the polls.

Delivering judgment on the petition, Justice David Mann struck out Tuggar’s petition declaring that it lacked merit as the CPC governorship candidate had failed to prove all the allegations raised in the petition beyond reasonable doubt. Mann, assisted by two other members, said Tuggar had earlier alleged that Yuguda had breached the Electoral Act for his inability to declare a sworn affidavit as the document was not tendered before the tribunal.

He asserted that Tuggar had also failed to prove that the polls were marred by multiple thumbprinting, thuggery, intimidations, harassment of voters, snatching of election materials, financial inducement and bribery. Mann emphasised that all the testimonies of the 29 witnesses for the petitioner were nothing to rely on as most of the evidence were “I hear say.”

He said most of the documents filed alongside the petition were dumped on the tribunal as the petitioner failed to tender them during the trial while most of them were either abandoned or had to be tendered from the Bar. Mann discountenanced the forensic test allegedly conducted by a South African forensic expert over 254,610 votes out of the over 770,000 scored by Yuguda during the polls.

-Sunwp_posts