Yesterday, the Sokoto Governorship Election Petition Tribunal rejected the petition lodged against Governor Ahmed Aliyu of Sokoto State and three others. The petition was filed by Sa’idu Umar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the recent election.
In the first case, the tribunal dismissed the petition filed by the PDP and its gubernatorial candidate, Sa’idu Umar, against Governor Ahmed Aliyu. The petition challenged Governor Aliyu’s victory on six grounds, including allegations of falsification of certificates, variation of names, election fraud, and non-compliance with electoral guidelines. However, the tribunal ruled that the petitioners could not substantiate their allegations beyond any reasonable doubt.
Also involved in the case were the state’s deputy governor, Engineer Idris Mohammed Gobir, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Umar had contested the governor’s victory on six grounds, including allegations of certificate falsification, name variation, election fraud, and non-compliance with electoral guidelines. However, the three-member panel presided over by Justice Haruna Mshelia unanimously decided that Umar and the PDP had not provided sufficient evidence to support their claims.
Justice Mshelia affirmed that the deputy governor’s primary school certificate was intact and clarified that the variation in the governor’s name (Ahmed and Ahmad) referred to Governor Ahmad Aliyu, citing a Supreme Court judgment on a similar case. Regarding the alleged certificate forgery, the panel stated that to establish forgery, two different documents of persons needed to be presented, but the petitioners failed to do so.
In response to the judgment, Usman Sule, lead counsel for Umar and the PDP, stated that they would review a copy of the judgment and decide their next course of action.