The Supreme Court, yesterday, affirmed the election victory of Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa State after dismissing the appeal filed by the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Umar Ardo, for lacking in merit.
Having withdrawn the appeal without any objection from counsel to Governor Fintiri, Mahmoud Magaji, and other respondents, the apex court unanimously dismissed it and affirmed the election of Fintiri.
The SDP candidate and his party had filed a petition at the state governorship election tribunal after Fintiri was declared winner of the poll.
In his petition, Ardo had sought the nullification of Fintiri’s re-election because there was substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act, corrupt practices, threats, and violence during the exercise.
He averred in his petition that the election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which returned Fintiri as winner, was not in substantial compliance with the amended Electoral Act, 2022.
He said the election was marred by corrupt practices, threats and violence, hence his request to the tribunal to nullify it.
However, in its judgment, the Adamawa State Governorship Electoral Petitions Tribunal dismissed the petition for being incompetent.
T. O. Uloho, who read the judgment said the petitioners besides bringing a defective petition, which was incongruous and not properly instituted before the court, also lumped their case leaving the justice uncertain of the kernel of their petition since they had lumped together corrupt practices and non-compliance and failed to file written statements of names of witnesses they intended to call.
The tribunal further said since the allegation of corrupt practices could not be credibly substantiated with credible evidence, it, therefore, rendered the petition incompetent, defective and without any probative value, worthless and lifeless.
The tribunal, therefore, dismissed the petition and awarded N200,000 in favour of INEC, Fintiri, Kaletapwa and PDP against the petitioners.
Dissatisfied with the tribunal’s decision, Ardo approached the Court of Appeal in his appeal marked: CA/YL/EPT/AD/GOV/17/2023, urging it to set aside the tribunal’s judgment.
But in its judgment, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, Yola division, which sat in Abuja, affirmed the earlier decision of the tribunal.
The appellate court held that the tribunal was in order in holding that Ardo and his party did not prove the allegations of corrupt practices and non-compliance with the Electoral Act which they made against INEC in their petition.
Ugochkwu Ogakwu said: “This appeal is bereft of merit. The decision of the trial tribunal, dismissing the appellants’ petition, is hereby affirmed.”
In another development, the apex court reserved judgment in the appeals by Okechukwu Ahiwe of the PDP and Ikechi Emenike of the APC against the election of Governor Alex Otti of Abia State.
A five-member panel of the apex court, led by Okoro, fixed judgment on both appeals after all the parties adopted their briefs of argument.
INEC had declared that Otti polled 175,466 votes to defeat his closest rival, Ahiwe, who scored 88,529 votes in the March 18 governorship election.
Dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, both Ahiwe and Emenike, who came third, separately challenged it.
However, in a judgment delivered on October 6, 2023, the Abia State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal dismissed the petitions and upheld Otti’s victory.
The judgment of the tribunal was affirmed by the Court of Appeal in Lagos, which also dismissed appeals that were entered against Otti by both the PDP and the APC candidates.
During proceedings at the Supreme Court, the PDP alleged that over 84,000 votes that were garnered by its candidate were wrongfully excluded during the result collation process.
The PDP’s legal team was led by the immediate past attorney general of the federation and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami. But it was a member of the legal team, Uche Ihediuwa, who presented the appeal.
The PDP informed the court that its agent was chased away from the Abia State governorship election collation centre, saying it was further denied a copy of the election result as required by law.
In addition, the party told the court that it had to approach the APC to obtain the election result sheets, which, upon thorough inspection, were found to contain sundry malpractices.
But in urging the apex court to dismiss the appeals, Otti, through his counsel, Abiodun Owonikoko, maintained that he validly won the election and was returned by INEC in total compliance with the law.
Denying the allegation that he emerged victorious through electoral malpractice, Otti drew the attention of the court to the fact that even if the 84,000 votes were to be added to the PDP candidate, the LP would still have won the election.
Besides, he noted that a purported result sheet that the PDP produced before the tribunal was rejected because it could not be read by the witness of the party.
On his part, the APC candidate, Emenike, urged the apex court to set aside the concurrent judgments of both the tribunal and the appellate court, which upheld Otti’s election.
He, among other things, contended that Otti was not a member of the Labour Party at the time the governorship poll was held and was, therefore, not validly nominated as a candidate for the election.
After the apex court had taken arguments canvassed for and against the appeal by parties, it reserved its judgment until a date to be communicated to them.
