The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Taraba State, Aisha Alhassan, said she will contest the appeal court judgment, which nullified the victory awarded her by the election petition tribunal in the state.
The counsel to Mrs. Alhassan, Mahmud Magaji, stated this while briefing journalists after the ruling in Abuja, Friday.
Mr. Magaji said his client’s submission remained that Governor Darious Ishaku, the Peoples Democratic Party’s governorship candidate, was not validly sponsored by his party, as required by Section 177 of the constitution.
“It gives room for us to test the judgment so that we can expand the jurisprudence of the electoral process,” Mr. Magaji said.
“Their lordships have gone through our various speeches and have come up with their own ruling and we feel that we have the right to proceed to the Supreme Court.”
Reacting to the comments by Mr. Magaji, the counsel to Mr. Ishaku, Kanu Agabi, said his client would not undermine the right of the APC and its candidate to seek further appeal.
“The right of appeal is what brought us here and the right of appeal is still what will take them to the Supreme Court, so I cannot underestimate the value of their appeal,” he said.
A five-man panel of judges, led by Justice Abdul Aboki, had described as “unattainable” the decision of the Taraba state election tribunal which declared Mrs. Alhassan winner of the April governorship election in the state.
Mr. Aboki, who noted that the APC had no right to question the candidature of Mr. Ishaku in the election, added that section 140 of the constitution only expect the tribunal to nullify the said election if the candidature of its winner was in doubt.
He added that according to Section 140 of the constitution, the tribunal was wrong in declaring the person with the next highest vote winner of the election.
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