By Tongnaan Dada Bawa,Jos

A member of the House of Representatives from Plateau State, James Ayuba and his House of Assembly counterpart, Hon Nanpon Bongden last week retained their seats following the failure of appeals against them to sail through at the court of appeal that sat in Jos, the state capital.

  The court in its judgment upheld the decision of the state election petition tribunal of September 12, 2007 which declared that the petition by the Action Congress against Hon. James Ayuba, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the Mangu/Bokkos federal constituency lacked merit.

 The judgment delivered by Justice Ape Awala on behalf of two other justices of the appellant court, noted that the earlier petition against the national assembly member was filed out of time.

 The judge noted that the official result of the April 21, 2007, election was declared on April 22, 2007 and to file a petition clearly out of the stipulated 30-day period was indeed out of time.   The court therefore dismissed the appeal.

While on the appeal of the member of the state assembly representing Langtang North-North state constituency, Hon. Nanpon Bongden, PDP, the court faulted the appellant, Democratic Peoples Party’s (DPP) plea alleging that the use of the presidential ballot paper for the state assembly election disenfranchised most of its supporters who were confused.

 Ruling on the matter, Justice Awala noted that there was no evidence that electorates did not vote during the election because they were confused and therefore dismissed the appeal.