The PDP and its Senatorial Candidate, Mr David Paradang, have filed an appeal challenging the judgment delivered by the National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal, which affirmed Mr Hezekiah Dimka (APC) as the duly elected senator for Plateau Central in the 2019 election.

Paradang  told newsmen that the PDP has filed a notice of appeal.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the tribunal had on Sept. 10 declared Dimka as the winner of the Feb. 23 election in a judgment delivered by the tribunal Chairman, Justice J.I. Nwoye.

The tribunal had held that Paradang and PDP,  could not prove any of the allegations raised in their petition and described it (petition) as “incompetent and lacking in merit”.

The tribunal expunged all evidence presented by the petitioners from its record and dismissed the petition in its entirety for lack of merit.

But Paradang claimed that the tribunal erred by dismissing his petition by erroneously expunging some vital points and evidence from it (petition).

“While appreciating the tribunal panel for the manner in which it handled the hearing of the petition, their decision to dismiss our petition is bizarre with no correlation at all to the trial proceedings and flow of the trial.

“Though experienced and learned, we believe that the best of men, even the best of judges is just a man and not all knowledgeable as God.

“You may recall that over 200,000 voters in the Plateau Central Senatorial Zone went to the polls on Feb. 23 and during the collation of results.

“We won roundly in Bokkos, Mangu, Pankshin and Kanke, LGA polling the majority of votes in the four local government areas in the central senatorial district.

“You may also recall that the results from Kanam LGA were delayed for over 60 hours, raising the suspicion of voter fraud to diminish and surpass our 19,000 vote lead over the APC candidate.

“But alas, on the arrival of the Kanam LGA results, they announced an APC lead of 23,000 votes in one LGA.

“We decided, therefore, to challenge this daylight robbery of the mandate freely given us at the election tribunal.

“Witnesses were called, documentary evidence tendered, all of which were vigorously, logically and eloquently argued by our lawyers.

“But to our dismay, the tribunal panel of three judges discountenanced all these and dismissed our petition,’’ he stated.

The PDP candidate then appealed to the people of the zone to remain calm and await the outcome of the appeal, which he said shall be just and fruitful.