Supreme Court affirms Ishaku’s election as Taraba governor; dismisses Mama Taraba’s appeal

The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal filed by the All Progressive Congress (APC) candidate, Senator Aisha Jumai Alhassan (popularly called Mama Taraba).

In a judgment delivered, Thursday afternoon, by Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour, the court ruled that Al-Hassan’s appeal lacked merit and substance.

The Supreme Court said it will, however, give reasons for the judgment on February 22, 2016.

The court earlier, Thursday morning, had suspended its judgment on the governorship tussle between  incumbent governor Darius Ishaku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Senator Aisha Jumai Alhassan of the All Progressives Congress, APC, till later in the afternoon.

‎The seven-man panel stood-down the matter for judgment after it entertained arguments from all the parties on the appeal that was lodged by Alhassan and the APC.

Alhassan who is currently the Minister of Women Affairs, was praying the apex court to set aside the verdict of the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal which upheld the outcome of the April 11, 2015, governorship election that produced Governor Ishaku.

‎It will be recalled that the appellate court had on December 31, 2015, reversed the judgment of the Taraba State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which nullified Ishaku’s election.

In voiding the decision of the tribunal, the five-man panel of Justices of the appellate court, held that Ishaku, validly won the governorship contest.

It maintained that the Justice Musa Danladi Abubakar led tribunal,‎ “grossly misdirected itself”,  when it not only nullified governor Ishaku’s election, but went ahead to declare the APC candidate winner.

Justice Abdul Aboki who read the lead judgment, said the tribunal acted outside its jurisdiction when it invalidated Ishaku’s election on the premise that he was not validly nominated by the PDP.

The appellate court stressed that the issue of nomination of a candidate by a political party “is clearly a pre-election matter which no tribunal has the jurisdiction to entertain”.

‎According to the court, neither the APC nor its candidate, Alhassan, had the requisite locus-standi to query the outcome of the PDP governorship primary election that produced Ishaku.

‎It emphasised that under section 87(9) of the Electoral Act, only those that participated in the said PDP primary election, has the statutory right to challenge its outcome at the Federal High Court or State High Court.

‎The appellate court said contention on whether the PDP rightly or wrongly conducted its governorship primary election, did not fall within matters that could be entertained by an election petition tribunal.

It would also be recalled that Aisha Alhassan subsequently in January went to the Supreme Court to challenge the appeal court judgment, which nullified the victory awarded her by the Taraba State Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.

Alhassan’s counsel, Mahmud Magaji, said his client’s submission remained that Governor Darious Ishaku, the Peoples Democratic Party’s governorship candidate, was not validly sponsored by his party, as required by Section 177 of the constitution.

“It gives room for us to test the judgment so that we can expand the jurisprudence of the electoral process,” Magaji said.

“Their lordships have gone through our various speeches and have come up with their own ruling and we feel that we have the right to proceed to the Supreme Court.”

A five-man panel of judges at the Appeal Court, led by Justice Abdul Aboki, had described as “unattainable” the decision of the Taraba State election tribunal which declared Alhassan winner of the April governorship election in the state.

Justice Aboki, who noted that the APC had no right to question the candidature of Governor Ishaku in the election, added that section 140 of the constitution only expects the tribunal to nullify the said election if the candidature of its winner was in doubt.

He added that according to Section 140 of the constitution, the tribunal was wrong in declaring the person with the next highest vote winner of the election.