ON Thursday, an Appeal Court sitting in Kaduna has upheld the victory of Governor Nasir El-Rufai as the winner of the March 9 governorship election.
The verdict of the appellant court to uphold El-Rufai winner of the gubernatorial election was the decision of the five-man panel of the Appeal Court judges sitting in Kaduna.
The five-man panel judges in a unanimous decision delivered by Justice Olumuyiwa Aburu, dismissed the petition of the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Isa Ashiru, upholding the judgment of the tribunal, which stated that the PDP’s petition as lacking in merit.
The Appeal Court consented to the judgment of the Kaduna Governorship Election petition Tribunal, which ruled that Ashiru had no proof for his allegations of rigging and electoral irregularities which he levelled against El-Rufai at the poll.
Recall that Ashiru and the PDP had challenged the declaration of El-Rufai as the winner of the March 9 governorship election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) demanding the result of the election be cancelled.
They approached the Kaduna Governorship Election Petition Tribunal seeking cancellation of the total of 515,951 votes which they claimed was allocated to the All Progress Congress (APC) as well as 124,210 unlawful votes, which according to them, were added to the PDP.
The PDP alleged that the unlawful votes added to that of the PDP were executed via double entry on the result sheets by the INEC.
The tribunal, however, dismissed Ashiru’s petition, ruling that it lacked merit to substantiate the claims.