The All Progressives Grand Alliance candidate in the April 11 governorship election in Nasarawa State, Mr. Labaran Maku has expressed appreciation over the conduct of the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Lafia, which concluded the adoption of briefings from all parties involved in the litigation on September 9, 2015.

The APGA candidate is challenging the declaration of Tanko Al-Makura by INEC as the governor of Nasarawa State before the Tribunal.

Mr. Maku, who spoke to newsmen in Abuja after the sitting of the Tribunal, commended the Tribunal for virtually accepting all the evidences submitted by the petitioner.

"We appreciate the conduct of the Tribunal so far. There has not been any major hiccup in the course of the proceedings and also virtually every evidence that we took to the court were accepted by the Tribunal particularly the Certified True Copies of the INEC result sheets at the polling units, ward, local government and state collation centres.

"The Inspection Report that we took to the Tribunal, which was tabled through a witness was also accepted by the Tribunal and the Expert Witness Report that we took to the Tribunal, which reconstructed the election based on the result of Form EC8A mainly on what took place at the polling units" he said.

Mr. Maku stated that the experts reconstructed the results to prove that he won at the polling units but the declaration by INEC was at variance with what the electorate did.

He said the reconstructed results clearly showed that he won majority of the lawful votes cast in the governorship election across the state.

Mr. Maku frowned at INEC for frustrating the inspection of the election materials for nearly two months even when the petitioner subpoenaed the electoral body and paid the legal fees to have access to those materials.

He said in its frantic effort to frustrate the inspection of the materials, INEC lumped the materials and dumped them at the Tribunal in order to forestall inspection by the petitioner's legal team.

The former Information Minister pointed out that another contradiction in the Nasarawa governorship election was that despite the allegation of vote rigging leveled against INEC and the APC, the respondents could not present witnesses to challenge the petition.

He said in spite of the fact that INEC, the APC and Governor Tanko Al-Makura front-loaded over 100 witnesses to testify in their favour, the few witnesses called upon denied their statements and testified against the respondents - a development that forced the respondents to discontinue the calling of further witnesses.

He noted that since the respondents could not defend any of the allegations made against them, all the depositions of the petitioner remained unchallenged at the Tribunal.

The APGA candidate equally mentioned that out of desperation and confusion, the respondents brought false witness statements to the Tribunal claiming that the election was conducted on April 14 and they didn't make any effort to correct the anomaly up to the date they made their submission.

Mr. Maku also debunked what he described as 'puerile argument' by the Defence Counsels that he only won one out of the thirteen local government areas, and said: "the question you should ask yourself is if I won in one local government, how come I became number two. What is the voting population of my local government to become number two?

The APGA governorship candidate maintained that he won nine of the thirteen local governments but the INEC in collusion with the APC claimed that he only won in his native Nasarawa Eggon Local Government Area.

Mr. Maku said he was overwhelmingly elected across Nasarawa State because the people were tired of the misrule and insecurity bedeviling the state under the Al-Makura regime.

He said having known his antecedent, the people voted for him in order to reverse the trend of events that made Nasarawa State the most unsafe place in the North Central.

Mr. Maku stated that he was able to garner broad-based support across the state within a few months that he left the PDP for APGA because of his personality and reputation, which made the people to vote for him across ethnic, religious and political lines.

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Time will tell...

ladyF:
Time will tell...

Is this all you can say?

Mr Ilyasu " Favour" Haruna of the Independent Democrat Party won the Elections in Nasarawa state.

APC e-warriors and proponents of the tribunals being a trustworthy arbiter where una dey?

Abi na only on top rivers and wike matter una sabi masturbate?