The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has ruled that the Zamfara State governorship election held on March 18 was inconclusive.
The court, in a unanimous decision by a three-member panel of Justices, nullified the return of Governor Dauda Lawal of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as the winner of the gubernatorial contest.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been instructed to organize a new election in three Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state. This directive pertains to areas where elections were not conducted initially or where results from several polling units were not considered.
Justice Sybil Nwaka, in delivering the lead judgment, emphasized that the court deemed it inappropriate for INEC to base the compilation of the governorship election’s final result on information sourced from its IReV portal.
The court’s decision came after an appeal was filed by the former governor of the state, Bello Matawalle, who ran as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the election.
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The court held that it was wrong for INEC to rely on information it obtained from its INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal to collate the final result of the governorship election.
The affected council areas out of the 14 in the North-Western are Maradun, Birnin-Magaji, and Bukkuyum.
