The Benue North-East Senatorial Election Petitions Tribunal has sacked Senator Emmanuel Udende of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) and returned Senator Gabriel Suswam of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the senator-elect.
The former Governor challenged the results from 474 polling units across five Local Government Areas, in the Senatorial Zone which is made up of seven LGAs with 1,844 polling units.
In her ruling in a judgement that lasted over three hours, Justice Zik-Ikeoha declared that the evidences provided by the petitioners’ counsel established that there were cases of over-voting, falsification and mutilation of results sheets as well as malpractices in five out of the seven LGAs that make up the Senatorial District.”
The Tribunal held that the petitioners establish that the result from the affected polling units were falsified, therefore cancelling 51,895 votes entered for Udende and also cancelled 21,229 votes entered for Suswam.
After subtracting the padded votes, Udende scored 82,699 votes, while Suswam was left with 90,590 and was returned elected.
