The Benue State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Makurdi, has dismissed the petition of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Titus Uba, who challenged the March 18 election for lack of jurisdiction to treat the matter.
The Tribunal panel also upheld the election of Governor Hyacinth Alia of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as authentic.
Justice Ibrahim Karaye, Chairman of the three-man panel of Justices, held that the Tribunal has no jurisdiction to treat the petition as the matters raised before the Tribunal were pre-election issues as captured in section 285 of the Electoral Act.
According to the Panel’s judgement, the petitioner ought to have pursued its case of non-qualification and the nomination of Governor Alia by the APC and the allegation of forged certificate and false information on form EC9 against his deputy, Sam Ode, before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), beyond the Federal High Court which dismissed the earlier suit filed by the petitioner to the Court of Appeal and not the tribunal.
It could be recalled that Alia Hyacinth of the APC, a Catholic priest, polled 473,933 votes to beat his closest rival Titus Uba of the PDP who polled 223,913.
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