Langtang North/South Constituency Tribunal Dismisses YPP Petition Against Hon .Beni Butmak Lar

Yakubu Busari

The National /State Houses of Assembly  Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Jos Division , Plateau  State, on Tuesday ,has  dismissed the petition filed by the Young People Party ,(YPP)  challenging the victory of Hon. Beni Butmak Lar  in the 25th February  2023 general elections .

A three-member panel of the court led by Justice Mohammed Tukur  dismissed the case after the petitioner’s lawyer, Micah Adaji , announced the withdrawal of the petition earlier filed .

Counsel for the respondents , Independent National Electoral Commission ,INEC , H.N.Ugwaike , The 2nd respondent ,S.Y.Tsok and the 3rd respondent all didn’t object to the application seeking the order of the tribunal to strike out or dismissed it .

They said it was the end of the petition brought by YPP  against the emergence of the Federal House of Representatives of Langtang North and South  during the election.

They  added, “We have responded to the petition, only for us to come on Monday to discovered that the petitioner was conspicuously absence in court and filed for the dismissal of the suit No,EPT/PL/HR/11 /23.

According to J.C.Lerai counsel to the petitioner ,we applied for withdrawal of the counter affidavit in response to the notice of P.O of the petitioner first respondent INEC which was filed on 16/06/2023 following the affidavit of of the secretary of the court .

He pleaded that he was not in court when such application was mentioned that he came into town this morning and rushed to the tribunal and drafted the withdrawal notice which that has been served to the secretary .

The lawyer prayed the tribunal to stand down for few hours to enable him proceeds with the letter of withdrawal  and find out that the party and the candidates claimed that they have looked at the petition again and they are not sure that they will succeed.

Plateau ,YPP stressed that “They brought an application to withdraw the petition. We are convinced that it was when they saw our response to the petition that they made up their minds on the non-availability of the petition because the petition on 10  grounds and that communicated what happened on 25th February .”

The respondents’  said before the ruling was read that the Electoral Act should be amended to create a threshold for candidates or political parties that would file petitions before the election tribunal must have scored at least a quarter of all the total votes cast during the conduct of the poll.

Also speaking, the petitioner’s counsel said, “The panel dismissed our petition based on our application for withdrawal.”

However, the tribunal awarded no   costs against YPP but reiterated that each party should bear his own cost