Tribunal dismisses Matawalle’s petition, affirms Lawal as Zamfara governor

<p>The Zamfara State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has affirmed the election of Dauda Lawal of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as the governor of the State.</p>, <p>The tribunal dismissed the petition by Bello Matawalle, the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, which challenged Lawal’s victory for lacking in merit.</p>, <p>It, therefore, awarded a N500,000 cost to the petitioner, Matawalle.</p>, <p>The three members of the panel: Justice Cordelia Ogadi, Justice Bello Hassan, and Justice Aliyu Gegele, were unanimous in their judgment.</p>, <p>The chairman of the three-man panel, Justice Cordelia Ogadi read the judgment of the tribunal, which lasted over four hours.</p>, <p>According to the tribunal, the petitioner failed to prove his allegation of wrongful collation of elections results and the election not being conducted in some wards in the State.</p>, <p>On the claim of non-compliance by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with the Electoral Act and corrupt way of conducting the election, the tribunal ruled that Matawalle could not prove his allegation.</p>