10th July, 2012
Adamawa Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Yola has fixed 25 July for judgement in the petition filed by ACN candidate, Markus Gundiri challenging the election of Governor. Murtala Nyako.
Nyako of the PDP was declared winner of the 4 February, 2012 polls by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Chairman of the Tribunal, Justice Bitrus Sanga, announced the date at the Monday sitting of the tribunal where final written addresses and replies on points of law by counsels to parties, were adopted.
The petitioner had dragged Nyako, his deputy, Bala Ngilari, the PDP, INEC and two others before the tribunal challenging the result of the election declared by INEC.
The petitioner, through his lead counsel Charles Edosamwan (SAN) alleged irregularities in some polling units in 11 of the 21 local governments areas of the state.
He prayed the tribunal to nullify the results of the election in the affected units and declare him winner of the election having scored the highest number of valid votes cast.
The first and second respondents, Nyako and his deputy had through their counsel, Kanu Agabi (SAN) urged the tribunal to strike out the case for lack of merit.
The respondents described the grounds of the petitioners as speculative and lacking in merit.
Counsel to PDP, Mr J.N. Egwuonwu and that of INEC, Mr Hassan Liman, in their respective submissions before the tribunal also called for the dismissal of the petition.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the tribunal was filled to capacity in spite of the tight security.
The sitting was witnessed by the state deputy governor, the ACN candidate and his running mate, Alhaji Abdulrazaq Namdaz, as well as other party officials.
NAN recalls that five political parties contested the polls which Nyako won by 302,953 votes while Gundiri came second with 241,023 votes followed by Buba Marwa of CPC who polled 107,546 votes.
Other candidates were Usman Ahmed of ANPP who scored 3,885 votes while Zainab Kwonchi of ADC had 2,846 votes.