Supreme Court Declares PDP Candidates Winners of All Zamfara 2019 Elections
The Supreme Court has declared all Peoples’Democratic Party (PDP), candidates winners of governorship, National Assembly, and State House of Assembly of the Zamfara state general elections.
In a unanimous judgment of the five-man panel led by the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, the apex court held that the first runners-up as the winners.
Justice Paul Adamu Galinje, who read the lead judgment upheld the decision of the Sokoto Division of the Court of Appeal to the effect that the APC did not conduct any valid primary elections in the state and as such had no candidate for any of the elections in the state.
He declared that the votes polled by the APC candidates in the elections as wasted, adding that the party and the candidates with the second highest votes were the valid winners.
All the three appeals challenging the judgment of the Sokoto Division of the Court of Appeal were dismissed by the apex court .
The judgments centre on the governorship, State House of Assembly and the National Assembly elections conducted in Zamfara State on February 23 and March 11, 2019
PDP came second in all the elections which saw the All Progressives Congress (APC) winning all the seats .
Moreover, PDP was not a party to the suit before the Supreme Court. It was the internal wrangling within APC over primary elections that got to the court.
APC candidates, including the outgoing governor of the Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, who was elected to the Senate, was said to have won most of the offices contested for in the 2019 elections with the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidates, placing first runners-up in the polls.
By PRNigeria
