The Governorship and National Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal in Sokoto State on Thursday granted the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Ahmad Aliyu, leave to inspect used election materials.
It also ordered that Gov. Aminu Tambuwal be served the court processes through substituted means.
The Tribunal Chairman, Justice Abbas Bawale, granted the prayers made by the petitioner’s counsel, Mr Steve Nwoke, noting that the tribunal had carefully perused the exparte applications.
Bawale granted the petitioners leave to physically inspect materials used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of governorship election and re-run election, photocopy documents, as well as obtain true certified copies.
He further granted the petitioners leave to serve Tambuwal through substituted means as prayed along with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) legal adviser, Mr Muktar Yabo.
Meanwhile, Justice Bawale also granted Tambuwal and his party leave to invite forensic experts to conduct physical inspection of materials used for the elections and obtain true certified copies of documents.
He further granted the respondents’ prayers moved by their counsel, Mr Muktar Yabo, on relying on the outcome of physical inspection, statistics by forensic experts in respect of the elections.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the main governorship election held on March 9 was declared inconclusive following cancellation of 75,403 votes which were higher than the 3,413 votes margin between the leading candidates.
The re-run was conducted on March 23, and Tambuwal won with a slim margin of 342 votes.
Unsatisfied with the outcome, Aliyu approached the tribunal challenging the return of Tambuwal as the governor-elect on the ground that the election was marred with irregularities.
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