The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Lafia, Nasarawa State, has reserved ruling in the petition filed by Mr Labaran Maku of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) challenging the election of Governor Umaru Al-Makura.

Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Halima Mohammed, yesterday reserved the ruling sine die after lawyers to all the parties adopted their final written addresses.

Mohammed said the tribunal had to be discrete about the date of the judgement considering the sensitive nature of the petition and the tension it had generated in the state.

She said the tribunal would through its secretary communicate the agreed date to all the lawyers three days before judgement date to avoid over-crowding the tribunal premises.

She acknowledged that as humans, they could be fallible but pledged that they would deliver the judgement dispassionately.

Mr Yusuf Ali, Yusuf Usman, and Hassan Liman, all Senior Advocates and lawyers to Al-Makura, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and INEC respectively, in their final written submissions, urged the tribunal to dismiss Maku’s petition for lack of merit.

Ali argued that the petitioner, who won election in only one local government area out of 13 could not claim to be the winner of the April 11 governorship poll in the state.

He said the petitioner also failed to prove his alleged case of malpractice by the evidence presented at the tribunal.

On his part, Usman, lawyer to APC, also urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition as the petitioner had failed to prove the allegation of over-voting beyond reasonable doubt.