Ighodalo, PDP head to Appeal court, as tribunal affirms Okpebholo as Edo governor
The Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has affirmed the election of Governor Monday Okpebholo and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the September 21, 2024, governorship poll in Edo State.
The three-man panel of the tribunal upheld the election as being validly conducted, just as it dismissed the petition brought before it by Asue Ighodalo and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP).
Justice Wilfred Kpochi, chairman of the tribunal, delivered the landmark judgment on Wednesday in Abuja.
Among others, the tribunal held that the petitioners failed to prove over-voting and also failed to call relevant witnesses.
Besides, Justice Kpochi asserted that Ighodalo and PDP did not speak to the documents they tendered instead, the documents were dumped on the tribunal
To prove over-voting, the tribunal said that the two petitioners are required by law to tender the voter’s register, BVAS and EC8A, which they did not do according to the requirements of the law.
Similarly, the tribunal chairman held that no eyewitnesses were called to testify on the alleged overvoting and such, making the allegations unbelievable.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had last year declared Okpebholo and APC winners of the governorship election, having polled a majority votes of 291,667 to defeat his closest rival, Ighodalo of PDP, who garnered 247,655 votes.
Dissatisfied with the declaration, PDP and Ighodalo had sued the INEC, praying for the nullification of Okpebholo’s victory on the grounds of irregularities and non-compliance with the electoral laws.
The petitioners anchored their claims on alleged over-voting and wrong computation of results during collation of results.
Claiming that they have successfully demonstrated electoral malpractices in 765 polling units out of 4,519 across the state, the two petitioners through their lawyer Mr. Ken Mozia, SAN, emphasised that the petition should be determined by the impact of irregularities, not just the percentage of affected polling units.
Mozia highlighted discrepancies at various collation levels, where figures on Form EC8A (polling unit results) were allegedly reduced at the ward and local government collation stages (EC8B).
In his reaction to the judgement, Ighodalo, through his team of lawyers, has vowed to challenge the decision of the tribunnal at the Court of Appeal.
