Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Lokoja, Kogi State, on Tuesday, dismissed the petition filed by Salawudeen Jimoh Ganiyu an Accord Party (AP) candidate against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Karimi Sunday, in the March 28 House of Representatives elections for Yagba Federal Constituency of Kogi State even as it declared the petition as incompetent, null and void and an error
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Honourable Karimi Sunday a candidate of the PDP, for the Yagba Federal Constituency as winner of the election and subsequently gave him Certificate of Return for another term, at the lower legislative chamber of the National Assembly
Dissatisfied with the decision of INEC, the AP candidate in the election, Salawudeen Jimoh Ganiyu went to the election petiton tribunal and filed a petition, seeking relief that the election was invalid on the ground of corrupt practices
Salawudeen through his counsel, M .O Ogedengbe, disclosed in the petition that Karimi Sunday was not duly elected by majority of lawful votes, seeking an order declaring and returning Salawudeen as the winner of the election
Karimi Sunday, however, in his response through his counsel Pastor John Bayshea, stated that the petition was incompetent believing that the petitioner participated in the election without conducting primaries, adding that the purported nomination sponsorship and participation in the March 28 election was null and void.
Delivering judgment on the petition, Justice Akinniyi Akintola the chairman of the three-man panel upheld Karimi objection to the petition and dismissed the petition, believing that it “was incompetent, having been brought by the petitioners who participated in the election without conducting primaries to pick the party’s ticket for the election.”
