By Vivian Okejeme Abuja
The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, Wednesday, has set aside the judgement of the Benue State National Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal that declared former governor Gabriel Suswam of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as winner of the senatorial election held on February 25.
Therefore, the court upheld the election of Emmanuel Udende of the All Progressives Congress(APC).
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Udende the winner of the election, saying he garnered 135,573 votes to defeat Suswam who had 112,231 votes.
But Suswam approached the Tribunal for redress.
In its ruling, the tribunal, the panel lead by Justice Ory Zik-Ikeorha, in a majority decision of 2-1 agreed that there was over-voting, irregularities, alterations and falsification of results during the poll particularly “in five out of the seven LGAs that make up the senatorial district”.
Subsequently, the panel deducted 51,895 votes from Udende and also cancelled 21,229 votes from Suswam’s score, before announcing the later winner.
Udende, irked by the decision of the tribunal, approached the appellate court for final determination of the matter.
A three-man panel of the appeal court, Wednesday, held that the Tribunal erred in recalculating the votes scored by candidates because Suswam failed to prove that over voting occurred during the polls.
“The decision of the Tribunal is hereby set aside,” the appeal court said while affirming INEC’s return of Udende as the valid senatorial candidate.
