The election of All Progressives Congress candidate Governor Hyacinth Alia was upheld by the Benue State Governorship Elections Petition Tribunal, which met in Makurdi on Saturday.
The Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate for governor, Titus Uba, filed a petition challenging the results of the March 18 election, but the tribunal rejected it due to lack of jurisdiction.
The Independent National Electoral Commission announced Alia as the election’s victor, with 473,933 votes over Uba, his nearest competitor, who received 223,913 votes.
Justice Ibrahim Karaye, the chairman of the three-person panel of justices, ruled that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction to consider the petition since the problems addressed in it are pre-election matters as defined by section 285 of the Electoral Act.
