Tribunal Upholds Yakowa’s Election Victory

The Election Tribunal sitting in Kaduna, northwest Nigeria, today upheld the result of 28 April, 2011 governorship election in the state won by Governor Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

In a unanimous judgment which lasted for three and a half hours, and amidst tight security, the tribunal judge, Justice Garba Kurajasar and two others declared that the evidence submitted by the petitioner Haruna Seyid, of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, lacked merit and substance.

Kurajasar said: “the failure on the side of the petitioner, Seyid of CPC to prove the evidence of alleged corrupt practices and non-compliance made the case insignificant and without merit.”

He declared Patrick Yakowa of the PDP as the authentic winner of the election.

In an interview after the judgement, Seyid told P.M.NEWS that the ruling “is a case of miscarriage of justice and robbing democracy.”

The CPC candidate said he will not relent in his efforts to see that justice prevailed.

According to him, there are still good judges even though there are many corrupt ones amongst them.

Against this background, he will be filing an appeal believing that the upper court will upturn the ruling of the tribunal.

Meanwhile, Governor Yakowa has received a large crowd of PDP supporters at Kaduna Government House who came to congratulate him on his victory at the election petition tribunal.

—Femi Adi John, Kaduna