Nigeria’s Supreme Court has postponed its decision regarding the appeal challenging Monday Okpebholo’s election as governor of Edo State.
Following the presentation of arguments by legal representatives on Wednesday, a five-judge panel of the court, presided over by Mohammed Garba, indicated that the date for the ruling would be announced later to the involved parties.
The appeal was submitted by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Asue Ighodalo, who won the election on September 21, 2024.
Ighodalo’s appeal, argued by Ken Mosia, requests that the Supreme Court invalidate Okpebholo’s election and declare him (Ighodalo) the rightful election winner on the grounds that he received the highest number of valid votes.
Conversely, Kanu Agabi, representing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), urged the court to reject the appeal entirely.
The electoral commission said that since it had declared the election unlawful, Ighodalo and the PDP could not request the court to declare them the election victors.
INEC accused the appellants of being inconsistent in their complaints regarding the election and asked for their case to be dismissed due to lack of merit.
INEC had announced Okpebholo, who ran under the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the election. The petitioners informed the court that the governorship election should be deemed invalid due to alleged violations of the Electoral Act 2022.
They requested the court to overturn Okpebholo’s declaration as the winner, claiming that irregularities tainted the election.
In its ruling on April 2, a three-judge panel of the tribunal, led by Wilfred Kpochi, found that the PDP and Ighodalo did not substantiate their claims against the respondents. The tribunal remarked that “no credible witnesses were produced” to support their allegations in the petition.
The petitioners then escalated the election challenge to the Court of Appeal. However, on May 29, a three-member panel of the appellate court, led by Mohammed Danjuma, dismissed the appeal for being without merit.
