On March 21, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the winner of the 18th March Governorship poll as Lawal-Dare, the candidate from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), with 377726 votes. This was in contrast to the incumbent, Matawalle’s 311976 votes.
However, on April 10th, Matawalle and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), filed a petition with the tribunal (EPT/ZM/GOV/02/2023). The petition challenged the validity of the election that declared Lawal-Dare the winner. The Petitioners, led by Usman O. Sule SAN, accused INEC of failing to include the results of some ward areas, which they claim would have given Matawalle a wide-margin victory.
According to the Petitioners, the number of accredited voters in Maradun LGA was 101652, as stated on the duplicate of form EC8C given to their agents. Bello Matawalle, the 1st petitioner and current Minister of State for Defence, claimed to have received 98564 votes in the election, while his opponent Lawal-Dare received 618 votes. However, the 3rd respondent (INEC) recorded that Matawalle received 24855 votes and Lawal-Dare received 12261 votes.
A three-man tribunal, led by Justice Binta Fatima Zubairu (who will become an Appeal Court Judge on Sept 20), unanimously ruled that the Petitioners failed to prove how they won the election with the majority of lawful votes cast. Therefore, the tribunal dismissed the petition.