S’Court reserves judgment in Binani’s appeal against Gov. Fintiri

By Andrew Orolua

The Supreme Court on Monday reserved judgment in an appeal filed by the All Progressives Congress, (APC) and its Adamawa State governorship candidate, Aisha Dahiru Binani challenging the election of Governor Ahmadu Fintiri.

A five-member panel of the apex court, led by Justice John Okoro adjourned the matter for judgment after listening to the arguments of parties involved in the matter.

Justice Okoro did not, however, fix date for the delivery of the judgement but simply said “it is reserved ” which implied that judgement date will be communicated to the parties.

Binani is challenging the victory of Fintiri at the March 18 governorship election in the state, but has had her petition dismissed by both the Adamawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division .

The appellate court in its unanimous judgment, delivered by Justice Tunde Oyebanji Awotoye, struck out the appeal for lack of merit.

Justice Awotoye said the Appellants failed to prove allegations of over-voting, irregularities and non-compliance.

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The court berated the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC,) for taking laws into his own hands in the controversial declaration he made in the election.

The unanimous judgment dismissed the appeal in its entirety and awarded a cost of N1 million to be paid by the petitioner to Fintiri and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by Binani and the APC.

Not satisfied with the judgement, Binani had filed the present appeal insisting that both the lower court and the tribunal erred in law in their decisions.

Recall that the Adamawa State INEC’s REC, Hudu Ari, had in April 2023, while the collation of election result was in progress following a run off election, declared Binani as winner of the election.

However, that declaration was nullified and described by INEC as usurpation of the function of the Returning Officer who a few days after, pronounced Fintiri as winner.

INEC later suspended Hudu Ari as the REC and handed him over to the Police who filed charges against him.