The election of Dauda Lawal, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as governor of Zamfara has been confirmed by the Supreme Court.
The Court of Appeal Abuja’s ruling, which ruled the March 18, 2023, governorship election to be inconclusive and mandated a rerun in three state local government districts, was overturned by the supreme court.
The election of Lawal was declared void by the appellate court in November, as reported by the Daily Post.
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He was proclaimed the victor of the March 18 governorship race, unseating the All Progressives Congress’s (APC) incumbent, Bello Matawalle.
Matawalle received 311,976 votes, while Lawal received 377,726 votes overall.
The APC candidate, who is currently the State Minister for Defense, claimed that INEC had manipulated the results of some LGAs in order to undermine his victory in the election.
The Zamfara Election Petitions Tribunal determined that Matawalle’s petition lacked merit in a previous decision on September 18.
While upholding Lawal’s victory, the panel awarded the N500,000 penalties against the Matawalle and the APC.
Dissatisfied, Matawalle challenged the lower court’s ruling in court at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.
Matawalle had some relief in the appellate court when the INEC’s announcement of Lawal as the governorship winner was overturned by a three-member panel chaired by Justice Oyebisi Folayemi.
In three local government units (LGAs) in the state where elections had not been held before or where the results from different polling places had not been tallied, Justice Sybil Nwaka directed INEC to hold new elections.
However, the governor went to the highest court in order to get justice.