The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal has upheld the victory of Governor Bala Mohammed in the March 18 governorship election in Bauchi State.
Sadiq Abubakar, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the March 18 election, challenged the ruling of the state election tribunal that upheld Mohammed’s victory.
The three judges unanimously ruled that each party should bear its own costs and that there were no costs.
The judge read the ruling in the order of the appellant’s appeal before the Court of Appeals. First, the appellant moved that the election be declared void because the forms and booklets used in the election were not properly filled out. The court ruled that appellant failed to prove this claim with the necessary evidence.
The court also ruled that appellant failed to state the voting units involved in said motion and failed to state what was missing from the forms. It further ruled that the appellant failed to prove how said improperly completed forms affected the outcome of the election.
While the court found that the appellant failed to prove that the witnesses called by the appellant understood what the forms looked like, it commended the court for doing a thorough job of scrutinizing the evidence before it.
On the claim that there was massive non-compliance with election laws, the court ruled that the appellant again failed to prove this because some of the witnesses who testified did not vote on election day and those who did only spoke based on what they saw in the voting units.
On the issue of the alleged unprofessional conduct of INEC officials, the court concurred with the tribunal and held that it was not part of the appellant’s claim in the lower court, was not pleaded, and could not be pleaded.
The appeal was ruled in favor of Mohammed in the first instance.
Regarding the allegations of fraudulent cancellation, mutilation, and alteration in favor of the PDP candidate, the Court of Appeals noted that tampering with results, if proven, is a criminal matter that could lead to the cancellation of the election results.
However, it held that the appellant had the burden of proving this, and if INEC was claiming that what it submitted was tampered with, it had to submit a genuine one.
The court noted that the appellant unfortunately failed to prove this. The court also stated that the least the appellant could have done was to present the authentic results along with the falsified ones.
