By Kamil Opeyemi
The Benue State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Makurdi has upheld the election of Governor Hyacinth Alia of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The tribunal dismissed the petition of the Peoples Democratic Party and its governorship candidate, Titus Uba, challenging the election held on the March 18 for lack of jurisdiction to entertain the matter.
Chairman of the three man panel of justices, Justice Ibrahim Karaye, held that the tribunal has no jurisdiction to entertain the petition as the matter raised before the tribunal are pre-election issues as captured in section 285 of the Electoral Act.
INEC had declared Governor Alia winner of the March 18 governorship election.
According to the result declared by the INEC, Alia, a Catholic priest polled 473,933 votes to defeat his closest rival Uba of PDP who scored 223,913.