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The Supreme Court has sacked all the elected candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara State in the 2019 elections including the outgoing governor, Abdulaziz Yari, who was elected to the Senate.
The five-member panel of justices, in a unanimous judgment on Friday, held that the party failed to conduct primaries in the state in line with the rules of the party.
In the lead judgment delivered by Justice Paul Adamu Galinji, the apex court declared all votes cast for the APC as “wasted votes”, declaring that all political parties with the second highest votes in the elections and the required spread, are elected to the various elections.
The APC had won the governorship as well as all the National and State Assembly seats in the state.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship and legislative candidates in the election would now be sworn in to the judgement which said parties with second highest votes be declared winner. It is however unclear if May 29 inauguration day will hold in the state as INEC is yet to comment.
The PDP scored the second highest valid votes in the general elections. In the governorship, while Idris scored 534,541, his closest opponent, Dr. Bello Muhammad Mutawalle of the PDP polled 189,452.