The Benue State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has declared the state governor, Hyacinth Alia of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the March 18 election.
The tribunal sitting in Markurdi on Saturday dismissed the petition of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)and its governorship candidate, Titus Uba.
Titus and his party are challenging the election held on the March 18 for lack of jurisdiction to entertain the matter.
The three man panel of justices, headed by Justice Ibrahim Karaye held that the tribunal has no jurisdiction to entertain the petition as the matter raised before the tribunal are pre-election issues as captured in section 285 of the Electoral Act.
According to the panel, “the petitioner ought to have pursued it’s case of non-qualification and the nomination of Governor Alia by the APC and the allegation of forged certificate and false information on form EC9 against his deputy, Sam Ode before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), beyond the Federal High Court which dismissed the earlier suit filed by the petitioner to the Court of Appeal and not the tribunal.”
Alia was declared winner with 473,933 votes ahead of his closest rival Uba, who scored 223,913.