Tribunal voids election of Jerry Gana’s Son, Joshua as House of Reps member, orders rerun

The National and State Houses of Assembly Election Tribunal, on Monday, voided the election of Rep Joshua Gana, son of former minister, Prof. Jerry Gana, in the House of Representatives.
Rep Gana, who was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Edati/Lavun/Mokwa Federal Constituency of Niger State in the Feb. 25 general elections won the election with 47,942 votes as against 40,003 votes scored by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Abdullahi Usman Gbatamagi and hence was declared winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Dissatisfied with the declaration, the APC and its candidate, Gbatamagi, through their Counsel, Johnson Usman, SAN, challenged the return of Gana.

The petition which is via a petition number: EPT/NG/HR/06/2023 was on the ground that the election was invalid by reason of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022, adding that the margin of win was less than the permanent voter cards (PVCs) collected in the polling units where elections did not hold or were cancelled.

Delivering the judgment on Monday, the three-member tribunal, headed by Justice Sylvester Godspower, agreed with Mr Usman’s arguments.

The tribunal proceeded to invalidate votes in the 26 polling units of the constituency, thereby reducing the votes of Gana to 46,494 votes while that of Gbatamagi now stood at 39,159 votes, leaving the PVCs collected in the affected polling units at 14,411.

The tribunal consequently set aside the Certificate of Return issued to Gana by INEC and ordered the commission to conduct a supplementary election in the 26 polling units within 90 days of the judgment with a view to determining the winner of the election.