Governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule has embraced religious conspiracy politics in the aftermath of his removal from office by the State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, alleging that two Christian Judges conspired to remove him from office due to religious sentiments.
The Tribunal sitting in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital, had on Monday October 2, 2023 sacked Governor Sule of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and declared the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, David Ombugadu, as the winner of the March 18, 2023 Governorship election in the state.
Ombugadu had dragged Sule to court challenging his declaration as the winner of the poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Delivering the judgment virtually, chairman of the three-member tribunal, Justice Ezekiel Ajayi, nullified the election of the incumbent governor and declared Ombugadu of the PDP as the duly elected Governor of the State.
In a judgment that lasted about two hours, and 53 minutes, the judge ordered the withdrawal of the Certificate of Return from Sule, while the same should be issued to Ombugadu as the validly elected Governor of Nasarawa State.
Sule, who made the claim of religious bias in Abuja on Tuesday while speaking at the 2023 Peace and Development Summit for Young University Students, said in a video that religious politics actually started before the elections, recalling that before the March 18 Governorship election, Bishop David Abioye of Living Faith Church Worldwide (aka Winners Chapel) had called on Christians to vote for Christians only.
Bishop Abioye, the First Vice President of Living Faith Church, superintends over Goshen, the sprawling Winners Chapel Church complex in Auta Balefi along Abuja-Keffi Expressway, Nasarawa State.
Claiming that Abioye’s statement contributed to his sack by the Tribunal, Governor Sule accused the Judges of hinging the tribunal’s judgement on religious sentiments, instead of the facts presented before them.
According to him: “A lot of you must have read the Tribunal ruling in our State when two of the Judges, who are Christians, decided that a Christian won the election and one Muslim Judge decided that it is the Muslim who won the election.”