THE Supreme Court has affirmed the election of Peter Mbah as the governor of Enugu state.
In a unanimous decision on Friday, December 22, the apex court dismissed an appeal brought by the Labour Party (LP) and its candidate, Chijioke Edeoga, to challenge the outcome of the March 18 governorship election.
A five-man panel of the apex court concluded that there was no justification for overturning the rulings of the Court of Appeal in Lagos and the Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, which rejected all of the claims made by the appellants against Mbah’s victory.
The court addressed every point in the appeal against Edeoga and the LP.
On November 10, the Court of Appeal in Lagos affirmed Peter Mbah’s election as Enugu state governor.
The appellate court dismissed Edeoga and the LP’s appeal as lacking merit and upheld the judgment delivered by the state governorship election petitions tribunal in September.
The appellate court’s three-member panel, presided over by Tani Yusuf-Hassan, ruled unanimously that Edeoga and his party had not proven that Mbah lacked the qualifications to run for governor.
The court observed that although the appellants claimed widespread excessive voting in Mbah’s strongholds, they did not present the voter registration utilised for the election as evidence for their claims.
Accordingly, it declared Mbah the legitimate winner and rejected the appeal as being without merit.
Dissatisfied with the judgement, Edeoga proceeded to the Supreme Court.
The ICIR published the highlights of Court of Appeal rulings for the 2023 governorship elections here.
This organisation reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Mbah the winner of the March 18 governorship election in Enugu state on Wednesday, March 22, after the controversial Nkanu East Local Government Area results were collated.
Mbah polled 160,895 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Edeoga of the LP, who scored 157,552 votes.
A reporter with the ICIR
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