Plateau Tribunal Affirms Hon .Nannim Joseph As The Winner Of Langtang North State Constituency And Dismissed Hon Nimchak  Abel Petition

Yakubu Busari

The National /State Houses of Assembly Election Tribunal on Thursday affirmed the victory of Member Representing Langtang  North State constituency of Plateau State.

Honourable Justice, Emmanuel Nwazunke in his judgment said the petitioners failed to discharge the burden of proof of overvoting alleged in the petition filed by Hon.Nimchak Abel Nansak of the All Progressives Congress, APC, challenging the election of Nannim Joseph Langyi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in an election held on the 18th Day of March 2023 general elections.

The petitioner petition is predicated on issues of noncompliance to the Electoral Act 2022, that the 3rd respondent PDP didn’t have a structure on the ground to sponsor and nominate the 2nd respondent to contest for an election in Plateau State.

The Tribunal confirmed that PDP has a solid structure in Plateau State after the Congress held on the 25th September 2021 held at Langfield Jos South Local Government Council of State and that the petitioners is neither member of the 3rd respondent to challenge the nomination and sponsorship of the second respondent.

However, the trial Tribunal dismissed the petitioner’s petition filed for lacking in merit as a waste of the Tribunal’s precocious time.

Judgment also harped on the petitioner’s locus standing to challenge the nomination and sponsorship of the second respondent because he had never been a member or a card-carrying member or hadn’t participated in the primaries of the third respondent to institute a suit against the respondents.

So many documents related to the petitioners were struck out for incompetent and didn’t add value to the Tribunal.

According to the judgment,” INEC monitored the conduct of the repeated Congresses held by the third respondent in compliance to series of judgments and of Hon.Justice Ishaya Kunda ,Hon .Justice S.P.Gang and Justice Arum Ashoms of State High Court including Federal High judgment of Justice Dorcas Agishi and The Appellate court respectively .