The Supreme Court of Nigeria has affirmed Peter Mbah’s election as Enugu State’s governor.
The Apex Court on Friday affirmed the judgments of the court of appeal Lagos and that of the Enugu state Election Petition Tribunal which upheld the election of Mbah as Governor.
Justice Muhammed Garba in lead judgement of five panel of justices, resolved the issues contested by the appellant who is the candidate of Labour Party (LP) Mr. Edeoga Chijioke Jonathan against him.
Grounds:
1) The LP candidate has prayed that; Mbah was not qualified to participate in the election because he failed the basic eligibility test by filing a forged NYSC discharge Certificate under oath.
2) That the election was not conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act, with respect to the non-use of BVAS machines for accreditation, inter-changing of LP’s results in 19 PUs at the Ward Collation Centre in Udenu LGA , electoral violence.
3) That the election result was not counted in accordance with the law due to over-voting, wrong tabulations especially in Mbah’s Owo Ward and Ugbawka 1 Ward, both of Nkanu East LGA, etc.
The Court of Appeal in Lagos had upheld the election of Peter Mbah as the governor of Enugu State.
The panel, led by Tani Yusuf-Hassan, concluded that the Labour Party (LP) and its governorship candidate failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove that Mr Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was not qualified to contest the election.
Regarding the allegation of over-voting, Mrs Hassan said in her lead judgement, voters’ registers were not presented before the lower tribunal.
She, therefore, ruled that the appeal failed because the petitioners failed to submit the voters’ registers for the disputed areas to substantiate the over-voting allegation.
The court also determined that the witnesses presented by the Labour Party did not sufficiently prove the existence of over-voting in the governorship election.
Consequently, the court dismissed the case for lacking in merit and upheld the judgement of the election tribunal, which had earlier affirmed INEC’s declaration of Mr Mbah as the winner of the 18 March governorship election.
Certificate under oath
The Supreme Court on the issue of non qualification of Governor Mbah by filing a forged NYSC discharge Certificate under oath, held that, the allegations by Jonathan have laid without proof at all and liable to be truck out.
“There is merit in the argument of the appellant and lacks merit.”
On the complain of lack of proper evaluation or counting of results in accordance with the law by the appellant, the court held that, the Tribunal was right to hold that the evidences were merely heresay as they are not substantiated.
“The Appeal lacks merit and the decision of the of appeal is affirmed in its entirety.” The Court held.
“All parties bear their respective costs,” the Court stated.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Governor Mbah as winner of the governorship election with 160,895 votes.
Mr Edeoga of the LP came second with 157,552 votes, while Frank Nweke of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) polled 17, 983 votes to place third.
Dissatisfied with the results, Mr Edeoga and his party filed a petition, challenging Mr Mbah’s victory, asking that he should be declared as winner on the grounds that he and the party, polled the highest number of valid votes.
Counsel to Governor Mbah Mr. Damian Dodo SAN while reacting on the judgment said it was in line with the law.