Exclusive News
On May 29, the Chief Judge of Zamfara State may turn out to become the Sole Administrator of the State following the Supreme Court ruling on Friday.
The Supreme Court had nullified the elections of all the candidates of the All Progressives Congress in Zamfara State in the 2019 general elections.
Delivering the judgement, Justice Adamu Galunje held that the Appeal Court in Sokoto was right when it agreed with the respondents that the party did not conduct primaries in the state.
According to him, a party that has no candidate cannot be said to have won an election, hence the votes cast for the APC in the election were wasted votes.
Consequently, following a unanimous judgment of a five-man panel led by the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, the apex court declared that the party with the highest number of votes cast at the election outside the appellants is the winner of the election.
The Court of Appeal in Sokoto State had earlier nullified the APC primary for the governorship election in the state.
The development followed an appeal filed by the lawmaker representing Zamfara Central district and Senate Committee Chairman on Petroleum (Downstream), Senator Kabiru Marafa, and 129 others.
Subsequently, the APC Governorship candidate and state governor, Abdul’Aziz Yari, took the case to the Supreme Court.
Exclusivenews.com analysis from the Supreme Court judgement results that the runner-up candidate be sworn in if he fulfills the constitutional requirement of getting one quarter of the total votes cast in at least two-third of the local government areas of the state. The PDP may not benefit from the judgement as being speculated.
Analysis further revealed that PDP did not win any of the 14 Local Government Areas in the last Gubernatorial polls in Zamfara state, APC won all.
PDP had one-quarter (25%) of the total votes cast in only 6 (Anka, Bukkuyum, Maradum, Buggundu, Kaura Namoda and Maru LGs) while it did not make the 25% requirement in the remaining 8 (Bakura, Gunmi, Zurmi, Birnin Mogaji, Gusau, Shinkafi and Tsafe).
Mathematically, two-third of 14 (LGs) is 9. Thus, Zamfara may not have a substantive Governor come May 29, 2019. Even if the Chief Judge assumes the Acting Governor’s role, there may still not be any elected members of the House of Assembly to be inaugurated. So the CJ will be a Sole Administrator of the State.
