THE Benue State Election Petition Tribunal has affirmed the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s Candidate, Governor Hyacinth Alia, at the March 18th Governorship election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had announced Alia the winner of the polls, amassing 473,933 votes ahead of Titus Uba of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who scored 223,913.
Following the announcement, Uba challenged the decision and filed a petition against Governor Alia, a Catholic Priest.
Uba’s petition was on the grounds of non-qualification and the nomination of Governor Alia by the APC, as well as the allegation of forged certificate and false information on form EC9 against his deputy, Sam Ode.
The three man panel of chaired by Justice Ibrahim Karaye has, however, dismissed the petition on the grounds that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to rule on it.
In its judgment, the Tribunal quoted Section 285 of the Electoral Act, thus labelling the petition as “pre-election issues.”
It held that the petitioner should, instead, have brought its case 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.
