TheCable

The governorship election petition tribunal in Kaduna state has fixed Tuesday  for ruling on the application filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the recount of votes cast during the election that held in the state. 

Isa Ashiru, candidate of the PDP is challenging the declaration of Nasir el-Rufai, the incumbent governor, as the winner of the election.

During the pre-trial on Saturday, Ibrahim Bako, chairman of the tribunal,  adjourned the the matter to Tuesday after heated arguments by counsels to both parties.

Aliyu Umar (SAN), lead counsel to the APC, argued against recounting  the ballots, saying the facts upon which the election was being challenged were not stated.

He noted that there were only three grounds to challenge the outcome of an election, which are non-compliance, corrupt practices or the person declared was not elected by majority of lawful votes.

“A ruling is going to be delivered on Tuesday next week on whether or not there is going to be a recount of those ballot papers,” he said.

“We opposed the recount because, in all legal contest especially election matters, you are supposed to state the fact upon which you are challenging the election.

“There are normally three grounds to challenge the outcome of an election, which are non-compliance, corrupt practices or the person declared was not elected by majority of lawful votes.

“They now lumped up these three processes.”

The PDP also applied to amend its earlier application for the recount of the entire ballot to 12 local government areas in the state, where it alleged that there were irregularities during the election.

Emmanuel Ukala (SAN), one of the counsels to the PDP, said the votes in those local governments were allocated.

“What we have done this morning is to move the motion for the ballot recount, which is to recount the ballot papers in certain local areas where we are saying that votes were simply allocated,” Ukala said.

“We are surprised that INEC who conducted the election and respondents who said they have won the election, would shy away from that recount.

“We just want to recount and whatever the result turns out to be, we will be happy and abide by it.

“We also filed motions to strike out certain paragraphs of their response, because once those paragraphs are struck out, they will definitely have nothing to respond too.”