On Friday, the Supreme Court affirmed Zamfara State Governor Dauda Lawal‘s election.
The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal’s November 16, 2023 ruling, which deemed the state’s March 18 gubernatorial election to be inconclusive, was overturned by the highest court.
It concluded that Lawal, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate, received the majority of valid votes and that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) correctly proclaimed him the victor of the governor race.
The appellate court’s decision was labeled as “perverse” by the highest court in its lead judgment, which was delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim.
It upheld Lawal’s election, upholding the previous ruling of the Zamfara State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal Victory.
It would be recalled that INEC had reported that Governor Lawal of the PDP won a total of 377,726 votes to prevail over the previous governor of the state and incumbent Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, who earned 311,976 votes.
On September 18, 2023, the tribunal upheld the INEC declaration, ruling that Matawalle, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, had not provided sufficient evidence to support his claim that some results from polling units had been disregarded by the electoral body.
The panel also found that, despite awarding the Appellants a N500,000 fee, Matawalle and his party had not produced sufficient evidence to support their allegation that INEC had violated electoral laws during the election.
The appellate court revoked the return of Governor Dauda as the winner of the gubernatorial contest.
In three Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state where election results were either illegally canceled or not counted, it mandated that INEC hold new elections.
The appellate court specifically instructed INEC to conduct polls in certain polling places in the Birnin-Magaji and Bukyum LGAs, but it also ordered a new vote in the state’s Maradun LGA.
According to the appellate court, the tribunal incorrectly assessed the evidence that the parties had submitted to it.
It concluded that INEC had erred in law when it assembled the governorship election results using data from its IReV platform.
The court ruled that the IReV was not intended to be a platform for collating election results, but rather for the public’s benefit alone.
Furthermore, the appellate court emphasized that, given the presence of over 98, 904 votes in the three impacted LGAs, INEC should not have returned to the election in accordance with the margin of lead principle.
It was decided that Matawalle, the appellant, had effectively met the legal burden of proof in order to invalidate Governor Lawal’s declaration as the legitimate victor of the governor’s race.
“The 1st Respondent was not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes. His return was not in compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act,” the appellate court held.
The Court of Appeal’s ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court on Friday, however, because it was erroneous and defied the preponderance of the evidence.