There is mild jubilation in the camp of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital as the Supreme Court sitting in Abuja; the country capital, upheld the return of Yahaya Bello as winner of the last governorship election in Kogi State.
In a unanimous judgment delivered, the court’s seven-man panel led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Ibrahim Tanko, dismissed the appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the election, Musa Wada.
Justice John Okoro authored the lead judgment, which was read by Justice Uwani Abba Aji, in which the court held among others, that the appeal was without merit.
The court upheld the concurrent decisions of the trial tribunal and the Court of Appeal that the petitioners failed to prove their claim that Bello was not lawfully returned by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner of the election held November 16, 2019.
The court is about to deliver its judgment in the appeal by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and its candidate in the election.
Recall that Wada who lost his appeal at the Election Petition Tribunal claimed that the Kogi election held on November 16, 2019, was riddled with serious electoral infractions, when he approached the Supreme Court after his petition was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on July 4th, 2020 with a split decision of two to one.
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A five-man panel of justices of the appeal court upheld Governor Bello’s election and ordered Mr Wada to pay a sum of N100,000 each to Governor Bello, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and INEC, who were listed as respondents in the appeal.
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On November 18, 2019, INEC returned Bello as the duly elected governor having scored the highest number of votes in the keenly contested poll.
He polled a total of 406,222 votes to beat his closest rival, Wada who scored 189,704 votes and Akpoti who garnered a total of 9,482 votes.
