The Governorship Elections Petition Tribunal sitting in Lafia, Nasarawa State, has reserved judgement on the petition filed by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), challenging the declaration of Governor Abdullahi Sule winner of the 2023 Guber election.

The sitting of last Thursday was slated for the adoption of final written addresses by counsels to the petitioner as well as the first, second and third respondents.

The lead council to the petitioner, Kanu Agabi, in his final address, said that precedent established by the higher court were binding on the tribunal.

Agabi also said that before the tribunal were certified documents and that EC8AS Results were different from what was in Form EC8B, EC8C and EC8D; hence, he called on the tribunal to focus on the documents before it which needed no witnesses to know who the winner was.

He also established the fact that the respondents could not file in a cross petition made it clear that they have no case against the petitioners.

He noted that he has called on the tribunal to put in the differences between the form EC8AS and EC8BS and see the actual winner in the election and consequently, declare PDP winner of the election. He also encouraged APC to be bold enough to concede defeat.

Earlier, counsel to the first respondent (INEC), Issiaka Dikko (SAN), argued that the petitioners’ claims were unrealistic figures, which has no substantial backup.

Counsel to the second respondent (Abdullahi Sule), Wale Olanipekun (SAN), pointed out various areas where objections were raised by them during the petitioner’s case.

He also appealed to the tribunal to kindly dismiss the petition filed by the petitioners in view of the fact that so many of the evidences brought by the petitioners were never in accordance with the law.

Olanipekun further argued that in view of the fact that they have no proper witness dispositions, that even the BVAS they claimed to bring were never admissible in court and that the petitioner has never mentioned in any polling units where they had 25 per cent of votes cast.

Counsel to the third respondent (APC) Dr. Hassan Mohammed Liman, noted the third respondent’s objections to witnesses and adopted the appeal file by the second respondent that the tribunal should dismiss the entire petition and the petitioner fined for the waste of the resources of people of Nasarawa State.

After listening to arguments by parties to the case, the Chairman of the three-man Governorship Election Petition Panel, Ezekiel Ajayi, reserved judgement after counsels to the petitioner and respondents adopted their final written addresses.

He announced that the tribunal will communicate parties through their counsel on the day that judgement would be delivered.