Supreme Court nullifies APC’s candidates’ elections, declares PDP winner of Zamfara polls – TheNigerialawyer

* declares parties with second highest votes as
winners

The Supreme Court on Friday nullified the elections of all the
candidates of the All Progressives Congress in Zamfara State in the
2019 general elections.

Delivering a unanimous judgment of the five-man panel led by the
Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, the apex
court declared the first runners-up in the 2019 general elections
in the state as the winners of all the posts earlier declared to
have been won by the APC and its candidates.

Justice Paul Galinje, who read the lead judgment upheld the
decision of the Sokoto Division of the Court of Appeal to the
effect that the APC did not conduct any valid primary election and
as such had no candidate for any of the elections in the state.

The panel also awarded cost of N10m against APC in favour of the
Kabiru Marafa faction of the APC and other respondents in the
appeal.

The justices sounded a note of warning to politicians against
destroying the country’s democracy.

He described the votes polled by the APC candidates in the
elections as wasted, adding that the party and the candidates with
the second highest votes and the spread in the various elections
were the valid winners.

The judgment centres on the governorship, state House of
Assembly and the National Assembly elections conducted in Zamfara
State on February 23 and March 11, 2019.

APC candidates, including the outgoing governor of the Zamfara
State, Abdulaziz Yari, who was elected to the Senate, had won most
of the offices contested for in the 2019 elections with the Peoples
Democratic Party’s candidates, placing first runners-up in the
polls.

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