By Kamil Opeyemi
The Appeal Court, Abuja Division, on Friday, affirmed the victory of Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State.
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress(APC) in the March 18 governorship election state, Sadique Abubakar had challenged the judgment of the petition tribunal which upheld Mohammed’s victory.
In a unanimous decision, the three-member panel ruled that Mohammed was validly elected.
In March, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Mohammed as the winner of the Bauchi governorship election.
The Bauchi governor polled 525,280 votes to defeat Abubakar, former chief of air staff, who secured 432,272 votes.
The former chief of air staff approached the tribunal to challenge the outcome of the election.
The presiding justice read the judgment in the order of the appellant’s plea before the appeal court.
The appellant pleaded that the election be nullified because the forms and booklets used in the election were not properly filled. The court ruled that the appellant failed to prove this allegation with the needed evidence.
It also ruled that the petitioners failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the alleged manipulation of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the election.
The court also ruled that the appellant failed to state the polling units involved in the said allegations and that he was unable to state what was missing in the forms. It further held that the appellant was unable to prove how the said improperly filled forms affected the results of the election.
The court held that the witnesses called by the appellant were unable to prove that they understood what the forms looked like, while commending the tribunal for doing a thorough job by scrutinising the evidence before it.
The court ruled that the appellants failed to prove that there was massive non-compliance with electoral laws during the election.