Sulaiman Dabo, the candidate of the Labour Party, LP, for Zaria Federal Constituency, has approached the Court of Appeal to challenge the verdict of the national and state house of assembly election petition tribunal affirming the victory of speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that Mr Abbas was declared the winner of the February 25 national assembly election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, after scoring 49,595 votes to defeat Mr Dabo and the candidate of the People Democratic Party, PDP, Shuaibu Musa.
Dissatisfied with the decision of the electoral umpire, Messers Dabo and Musa approached the tribunal to seek the nullification of Mr Abbas’ victory.
However, Mr Musa later withdrew his suit after the intervention of some stakeholders.
On August 25, the tribunal however dismissed Mr Dabo’s petition, saying the Labour Party and its candidate failed to prove the grounds of their petition.
But in a notice of appeal filed at the Kaduna division of the appellate court on September 10, Mr Dabo averred that the lower court erred in dismissing his petition.
They also disagreed with all all the ground cited by the tribunal in dismissing the suit.
In the notice of appeal with number CA/EPT/HR/KD/19/23, the appellants alleged that there was substantial non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 during the election.
The appellants therefore prayed the court to set aside the judgment of the tribunal and order a fresh election in the Zaria Federal Constituency.
“Take notice that the appellant, being dissatisfied with the final judgement of the National and State Houses of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal holden at Kaduna delivered on the 25th day of August 2023 in PETITION No. EPT/KD/HR/3/2023, hereby appeal to the Court of Appeal upon the grounds stated in paragraph 3 and upon the hearing of the Appeal seeks the reliefs set out in paragraph 4.” the letter partly reads.
The suit has Mr Abbas, All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC as respondents.
