THE Supreme Court has affirmed the victory of Duoye Diri, Usman Ododo, and Hope Uzodinma as Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo state governors, respectively.
Diri belongs to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while others are the All Progressives Congress (APC) members.
In a unanimous decision on Friday, August 23, the five-member panel dismissed the appeal brought by the APC’s Timipre Sylva, who challenged the November 11, 2023, Bayelsa election results.
The ICIR reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Diri the poll winner.
Diri defeated Sylva – his closest opponent – having polled 175,196 votes.
The APC candidate won in only two LGAs and scored 110,108 across the state, while their Labour Party (LP) counterpart polled 905 votes.
Following Diri’s re-election victory, Sylva challenged the result at the governorship election petition tribunal and consequently at the appeal court but lost in both.
He further challenged the decision at the Supreme Court, but the court held that the appeal by Sylvia and the APC was not only lacking merit but also amounted to a gross abuse of the court process.
The Supreme Court’s lead judgment, delivered by Mohammed Garba, stated that Sylva’s decision to file multiple notices of appeal against a single judgment from the election petition tribunal was improper.
The panel also rejected the appeal from the National Rescue Movement (NRM) and its candidate, Micah Akeems, who accused Bayelsa deputy governor, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, of submitting a forged National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate to INEC.
The court ruled that the appeal was without merit, as it bothered on a pre-election matter.
The Supreme Court, also on Friday, upheld the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which had on July 11, 2024, affirmed Usman Ododo as the winner of the November 11, 2023, governorship election.
The court held that the appeal by the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Muritala Ajaka, challenging the declaration of Ododo as governor of Kogi State lacked merit.
The apex court agreed with the judgement of the appellate court, which held that Ajaka’s case was unmeritorious, and consequently dismissed it.
Similarly, the Supreme Court dismissed two separate appeals by the PDP and LP against Uzodinma’s victory as the elected governor of Imo State.
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeals of LP candidate, Athan Achonu, and PDP candidate, Samuel Anyawu, thereby affirming Uzodinma as the duly elected governor of the state.
In the lead judgment delivered through Mohammed Baba Idris, the apex court stated that the LP and PDP candidates failed to provide sufficient evidence to support their claims of overvoting and other electoral irregularities in the November 11, 2023, election.
The Supreme Court’s unanimous rulings aligned with the previous decisions of the Court of Appeal and the Imo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja, which had also dismissed the petitions in their respective judgments.
Uzodinma won the 2023 Imo governorship election by a landslide. He swept all 27 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state.
He polled 540,308 votes to beat Samuel Anyanwu of the PDP who got 71,503 votes, and Athan Achonu of LP who scored 64,081 votes.
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: [email protected]. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M
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