Posted by On Friday, the Court of Appeal in Abuja validated Rep. Jafaru Leko’s election as the representative for Bauchi State’s Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa Federal Constituency.
The Peoples Democratic Party’s Kefas Magaji’s appeal was rejected by a three-judge panel headed over by Justice Lawal Shuaibu because it was without merit.
The court found that Magaji and PDP had not provided sufficient evidence to support their claims.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on February 25, 2019, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced that Leko, a candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC), had won the election for the federal constituency seat.
Magaji and the PDP, dissatisfied with their triumph, petitioned Leko to overturn his decision.
However, the petition was denied by the National and State Houses of Assembly Elections Tribunal.
Appeal No. CA/J/EPT/BA/HR/05/2023 between Barrister Kefas M. Magaji and the PDP and Jafaru Gambo Leko, the APC, and the Independent National Electoral Commission was filed by the petitioners at the Court of Appeal.
On Friday, the Appeal Court sided with Leko’s attorney, Mr. Johnson Usman, SAN, and upheld the trial tribunal’s dismissal of the petition.
The court dismissed the appeal and upheld that Jafaru Leko was the winner of the poll after expressing surprise that majority of the petitioners’ witnesses testified in Hausa Language while their witness statements were made in English.
Mr. Usman, commenting on the appeal’s conclusion with NAN, hailed the ruling as a triumph for democracy.
The senior counsel said the court did what it should have done when it upheld the trial court’s ruling, finding that the petitioners/appellants had failed to prove their case at both stages of the proceedings.
The petitioner’s attorney, Mr. Israel Usman, declined to comment on the situation.
Without further explanation, he replied, “Until my client asks me to speak, I cannot make any comment about the judgment.”