Court Sacks Zamfara Gov. Dauda Lawal, 8 Months After Election | READ DETAILS
The court of appeal has sacked Dauda Lawal of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from being the governor of Zamfara state eight months after the election.
Recall that Lawal was declared winner of the March 18, 2023 governorship election, defeating the then incumbent governor, Bello Matawalle of the All Progressive Congress (APC).
Matawalle had scored 311,976 votes, while Lawal scored 377,726 votes and was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Ruling in a petition filed by Matawalle, the Zamfara State Election Petitions Tribunal had on September 18 upheld Lawal’s victory noting that the petitioner’s claims lacks merit.
The tribunal also awarded N500,000 fine against Matawalle who later approached the court of appeal.
Ruling on Thursday, November 16, the three-member panel of the appeal court led by Justice Oyebisi Folayemi, nullified the return of Governor Lawal as the winner of the governorship poll.
Justice Sybil Nwaka who read the lead judgment ordered INEC to conduct a fresh election in three local government areas of the state, where elections had not been held previously or where results from various polling units were not counted.
The affected council areas out of the 14 in the North-Western are Maradun, Birnin-Magaji, and Bukkuyum.
The Court held that INEC’s use of IREV information to declare Lawal as governor in the absence of polling units results were unlawful, illegal and unconstitutional.
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