Supreme Court upholds election of Darius Ishaku as Taraba governor as Aisha Al-Hassan loses out

Supreme Court this afternoon upheld the election of the state governor, Darius Ishaku, as Aisha Al-Hassan, the Minister of Women Affairs has lost her bid to govern Taraba state.

Al-Hassan had approached the Apex court to set aside the Court of Appeal Abuja's ruling on Dec. 31st 2015 that upheld the election of Ishaku.

The Supreme Court in its ruling today, said the state election tribunal had no power to nullify Ishaku's election because he was not validly nominated by the PDP.

The apex court stressed that the issue of nomination of a candidate by a political party “is clearly a pre-election matter which no tribunal has the jurisdiction to entertain”.

The court ruled that neither APC nor its candidate, Alhassan, had the requisite locus-standi to query the outcome of the PDP governorship primary election that produced Ishaku. The appellate court said contention on whether the PDP rightly or wrongly conducted its governorship primary election, did not fall within matters that could be entertained by an election petition tribunal.