JUST IN: Appeal Court Sacks House Majority Leader

The Appeal court sitting in Kaduna has on Monday sacked the house leader, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, who represents Tudunwada/Doguwa  Federal constituency.

The appellate court nullified the entire elections in the two local government areas Mr. Doguwa represents and ordered INEC to conduct elections within 90 days in the entire constituency.

The election petition tribunal had on September 5 dismissed the petition filed by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Yusha’u Salisu, against Mr. Doguwa.

The tribunal had claimed that the PDP candidate failed to prove allegations of irregularities and over-voting in the election.

But in a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Oludotun Adefope-Okojie, the Court of Appeal wondered how the tribunal arrived at the conclusion that PDP and its candidate had failed to prove their case.

The appellate court held that the entire election could not stand as Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had omitted other parties from the final declaration of the result.

The court said INEC made a substantial breach by writing the results of only two parties out of 53 parties that participated in the election in Form EC 8 (II) E.

Recall that another APC lawmaker in Kano, Abdul Mumin Jibrin, had earlier been sacked some days ago and fresh elections had been ordered in some parts of the constituency.