By Muslim Lawal.
The Supreme Court has upheld the election of Senator Bala Mohammed as Governor of Bauchi State.
In a lead judgement, Justice Ibrahim Saulawa, affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which had on November 17, 2023, upheld the election of Bala Mohammed as the duly elected Governor of Bauchi State.
The unanimous judgment of the 5-Man Panel was on an appeal by the gubernatorial candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Amb Saddique Baba Abubakar, who was not satisfied with INEC’s declaration of Bala as winner of the March 18 governorship election in the State.
Justice Saulawa held that Abubakar’s appeal was “devoid of merit” since all the six issues adopted for determination were answered against the appellant.
The Bauchi Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, had earlier declared Bala Mohammed as winner of the election
Bala, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party polled 525,280 votes to defeat Abubakar, a former Chief of Air Staff, who secured 432,272 votes.
Abubakar had approached the tribunal seeking to nullify Bala Mohammed election, but in September, the tribunal dismissed the petition filed by him and the APC.
The tribunal had found that the petitioners failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the alleged manipulation of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the election, to the advantage of the PDP candidate.
