El-Rufai vs Ashiru: Court fixes date for PDP votes recount appeal

The Court of Appeal in Kaduna State has fixed Thursday, June 27 to hear the appeal of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seeking for votes recount in the March 9 Governorship election in the state.

Mr. Elisha Kurah (SAN), lead Counsel to the PDP and its governorship candidate, Isa Ashiru, made the disclosure on Thursday, shortly after the sitting of the governorship election Tribunal in Kaduna.

The Tribunal had on May 28, struck out the petitioners’ motion seeking for a recount of votes cast in the governorship elections in the state, for lack of merit.

Chairman of the Tribunal, Justice Ibrahim Bako, who ruled on the motion, said the tribunal had a timeline of only 180 days within which to complete its assignment.

Bako had said that the Tribunal would not accommodate the motion seeking for the recount of votes.

He had also refused the application for amendment of the motion seeking to narrow the votes recount exercise to only 12 local government areas.

The PDP and Ashiru had on May 25, applied to amend the motion to restrict vote recounts to only Kaduna North, Kaduna South, Igabi, Birnin Gwari, Giwa, Zaria, Sabon Gari, Makarfi, Kudan, Kubau, Soba and Ikara local government areas, mostly won by the APC.

However, Kurah said the petitioners’ appeal would be coming up for hearing on Thursday, June 27 at the Federal Court of Appeal.

The Counsel said that the petitioners would put a strong submission for the appeal to scale through.

On the ongoing trial before the Tribunal, Kurah said the petitioners would prune their witnesses from the 685 they earlier assembled as the 47 witnesses they had so far presented before the Tribunal had covered most of the issues they had raised in their petition.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Justice Ibrahim Bako-led Tribunal had admitted 15 witnesses on Thursday apart from the 32 who testified on Tuesday and Wednesday.

NAN reports that the witnesses were mostly PDP agents and returning officers from Zaria and Kaduna North LGs who accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of failure to conduct elections in those areas.

Meanwhile, the Tribunal has adjourned to Friday, to take more witnesses from the petitioners and also rule on the application for adjournment to enable the team of counsel get some rest.