Supreme Court has dismissed two separate appeals that challenged the re-election of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State.
The appeals were lodged against the outcome of the gubernatorial election that held in the state on November 16, 2019, by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Musa Wada, as well as the Social Democratic Party, SDP, and its own candidate, Natasha Akpoti.
Whereas Wada of the PDP came second in the election, Akpoti of the SDP got the third highest number of valid votes.
In different unanimous judgements, a seven-man panel of Justices of the Apex court led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Ibrahim Tanko, held that both appeals lacked merit.
While the lead verdict in the case of the PDP and its candidate, was prepared by Justice Inyang Okoro, that of the SDP was prepared and read by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji.
In the first appeal, the Supreme Court, upheld the earlier judgement of the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, which had on July 4, dismissed the case of the PDP and its candidate, and validated the majority decision of the Kogi State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal that affirmed governor Bello’s election victory.
The apex court said it was satisfied that the Court of Appeal neither denied the Appellants fair hearing, nor wrongly evaluated their case against the outcome of the Kogi State governorship poll.
“The appellants failed to prove before this court why it should disturb the concurrent findings of the two courts below”, Justice Okoro held in the lead verdict.
The apex court stressed that the Appellants failed to substantiate their case, noting that they adduced evidence with respect to only 24 out of the 729 polling units in the state.
It is abundantly clear that this appeal is devoid of any scintilla of merit and it is accordingly dismissed”, the court held.
PDP and its candidate had insisted that governor Bello was not validly elected by majority of lawful votes cast at the election.
In their petition at the tribunal marked EPT/KG/GOV/06/2019, they sought the annulment of governor Bello’s re-election, alleging that he rigged himself back to office.
The appellants alleged that the election was invalid by reason of widespread electoral malpractices, violence and substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act.
They prayed the court to nullify the Certificate of Return that was issued to governor Bello by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and declare that Wada scored majority of votes cast at the election and fulfilled requirements of section 179(2)(a) and (b) of the Constitution.
Alternatively, the Petitioners prayed for an order directing INEC to conduct supplementary election in polling units where elections were cancelled, noting that the margin of lead between the 2nd Respondent and the 1st Petitioner, was Iess than the registered voters in the cancelled polling units.
However, in its judgement, the Supreme Court, held that allegations of corruption the Appellants raised against the election were criminal in nature, and therefore ought to have been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
It accordingly resolved all the issues against the Appellants.
Similarly, the court also resolved seven issues Akpoti and the SDP raised in their own appeal, against them.
INEC had on November 18, declared governor Bello winner of the election.
The Returning Officer, Ibrahim Garba, who is the Vice-Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, declared that Bello polled the highest number of votes in the election with 406,222 to defeat Wada of the PDP who scored 189,704 in the election.
As collated by INEC, Bello defeated Wada with a total of 216,518, while Natasha Akpoti of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) came a distant third in the election with 9,482 votes
