Tribunal Delivers Final Judgment On Yahaya Bello’s Election

The Tribunal has delivered a final judgment on Governor Yahaya Bello’s election.

NewsOne Nigeria reports that the Kogi state governorship election petition tribunal has affirmed the election of Yahaya Bello as governor of Kogi State, north-central Nigeria.

THE Kogi state governorship election petition tribunal sitting in Abuja, the nation’s capital, on Saturday, May 23, dismissed the case filed against Governor Bello by Musa Wada, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s main opposition party.

The three-man panel of judges, led by Justice Ibrahim Kaigama, unanimously dismissed Musa Wada’s petition for lack of merit and asked him to pay N500,000 as costs to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Independent National Election Commission (INEC) for his frivolous claims.

Before the judgment, Musa Wada of the PDP scored 189,704 votes to emerge the first runner-up of the November 16, 2019 election, however, displeased with the outcome of the election, he approached the tribunal to challenge the victory of Yahaya Bello, who polled 406,222 votes.

After the judgment today by the governorship election tribunal, the PDP candidate has vowed to challenge the judgment at the Court of Appeal to seek justice and reclaim what he termed as “stolen mandate”.

Meanwhile, before today’s ruling of the Kogi state governorship election petition tribunal, two other petitions against Bello were dismissed by the Kogi state governorship election petition tribunal during the week.