Zamfara state politics has been hit by a political tsunami as the Supreme Court Friday sacked all candidates elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC during the recently held national and state elections.

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Delivering a unanimous judgment of the five-man panel led by the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, the apex court declared the first runners-up in the 2019 general elections in the state as the winners of all the posts earlier declared to have been won by the APC and their candidates.

Galaxy’s Godfrey Eshiemoghie reports that outgoing Zamfara governor, Abdulaziz Yari, who was returned elected into the Senate, is one of the biggest casualties stemming from Friday’s Supreme Court judgment.  

Justice Paul Galinje, who read the lead judgment upheld the decision of the Sokoto Division of the Court of Appeal to the effect that the APC did not conduct any valid primary election and as such had no candidate for any of the elections in the state.

He decried the votes polled by the APC candidates in the elections as wasted, adding that the party and the candidates with the second highest votes and the spread in the various elections were the valid winners.

The Court also ordered a fine of N10million against the APC which is an appellant in the suit filed by Mukhtar Shehu, the Zamfara State governor-elect.

As the judgment centered on the governorship, state House of Assembly and the National Assembly elections conducted in Zamfara State on February 23 and March 11, 2019, it is expected that INEC will withdraw the Certificates already issued to the APC governor-elect and those for the state and federal lawmakers-elect.