The Court of Appeal’s Abuja division has overturned Senate Minority Leader Simon Mwadkwon’s victory in the Plateau North senatorial election on February 25.
The Appeal Court ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to hold a new election within 90 days.
The appeals of Chris Giwa of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Gyang Zi of the Labour Party (LP) were dismissed by the court.
Giwa and Zi had challenged the decision of the National/State Election Petitions Tribunal in Jos, Plateau State, which had previously declared Mwadkwon of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the genuine victor of the senate election.
They claimed that Mwadkwon was ineligible to run in the election because the PDP lacked structure.
Justice E. Daudu, reading the lead judgment, found that the PDP failed to fully comply with the High Court ruling because 12 local government districts did not participate in the aforementioned party congress.
“The court made conclusive findings on the issue at hand.”
“I agree with the appellants that the court must protect an order of another court to avoid anarchy.”
“I agree with the appellant that the third respondent lacked a valid structure and therefore could not claim to have validly nominated the second respondent (Mwadkwon) for the election.”
“Given this court’s findings, the appeal succeeds because the court order was not followed.”
“The first respondent is hereby ordered to conduct another senatorial election in Plateau North within 90 days,” the court said.
