Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello Wins PDP At Supreme Court
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the appeal of the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Engineer Musa Wada and its party against the election of Mr. Yahaya Bello as Governor of Kogi State.
The apex court in a unanimous judgment dismissed the appeal for lacking in merit and upheld the concurrent decisions of the Court of Appeal and the majority judgment of the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.
The lead judgment read by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji, held that the appellants were unable to prove allegations of electoral malpractices in the November 16 governorship election.
The apex court held that failure of the appellants to call polling units agents was fatal to their case, adding that the appellants merely dumped documents that could not be attached probate value.
Though the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Ibrahim Tanko, led the seven-man panel that heard the case of the appellants, the lead judgement was however prepared by Justice Inyang Okoro and read by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji.
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.
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.
More details soon.
