APPEAL COURT AFFIRMS OKPEBHOLO AS EDO GOVERNOR

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has upheld the election of Monday Okpebholo as the Governor of Edo State, affirming the decision of the Tribunal which dismissed the petition of Asue Ighodalo of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for lacking merit. A three-man panel of the Appeal court, presided over by Justice Mohamed Danjuma, held that the PDP failed to provide sufficient and credible evidence to substantiate their claims of electoral malpractice, irregularities, and non-compliance with the Electoral Act.

The panel faulted Ighodalo and the PDP for failing to tender the voter register to prove overvoting, adding that BVAS extract doesn’t constitute items with which to prove overvoting. The Court also expunged the evidence of the 133 BVAS machines tendered at the Tribunal stage, saying they were merely “dumped” without being demonstrated to prove overvoting.

Justice Danjuma further held that the 19 witnesses called by the appellants during the Tribunal hearing didn’t help their case, as the majority of them did not witness what they spoke about. The court added that the witnesses were insufficient to prove irregularities in polling stations at over 4,000 locations.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Okpebholo the winner with 291,667 votes, against Asue Ighodalo of the PDP who garnered 247,274 votes. Despite the verdict, Ighodalo has rejected the judgment and announced plans to contest the decision at the Supreme Court.

“We will contest the verdict of the appellate court at the Supreme Court,” Ighodolo’s camp hinted, expressing confidence in their case. Okpebholo, on the other hand, has been affirmed as the duly elected Governor of Edo State.