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By Myke Agunwa, Abuja
The protracted legal battle over the winner of Edo State governorship election was on Thursday put to rest as the Supreme Court affirmed the election of Sen. Monday Okpebholo.
A five-member panel led by Justice Mohammed Garba, in a unanimous decision, dismissed as lacking in merit, an appeal the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Asue Ighodalo, filed to nullify the outcome of the governorship election held in the state on September 21, 2024.
The apex court said that it found no reason to set aside the concurrent judgments of both the Court of Appeal and the Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which returned Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), as the valid winner of the gubernatorial contest.
It held that the Appellant failed to adduce credible and admissible evidence to substantiate his claim that the election was marred by irregularities that included over-voting and substantial non-compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act.
The court added that the Appellant failed to call relevant witnesses to demonstrate some of the evidence he tendered in support of his case, especially the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, (BVAS) machines.
It held that some of the proof of evidence, which were tendered from the Bar, were merely dumped on the tribunal without establishing alleged non-compliance in 432 out of a total of 4,519 polling units in the state.
“The Appellant did not satisfactorily discharge the burden of proof placed on him by the law,” the Supreme Court held in its lead judgement that was delivered by Justice Garba.
Ighodalo had in the appeal marked: SC/CV/536/2025, prayed the court to invalidate the May 29 verdict of the Court of Appeal, which dismissed his case and affirmed Okpebholo’s victory.
The PDP candidate maintained that the appellate court failed to properly evaluate the case he brought to challenge the outcome of the poll, which he insisted was not conducted with substantial compliance to provisions of the Electoral Act.
The Supreme Court had on July 2, reserved its judgement after all the parties adopted their final briefs of argument.
The PDP urged the court to upturn the subsisting judgments and declare that he secured the highest number of valid votes and therefore ought to be declared the winner of the election, on the other hand, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC; governor Okpebholo and the APC, persuaded the court to dismiss the appeal and uphold the result of the election.
A three-member panel of the Appeal Court led by Justice M. A. Danjuma, had declined to nullify Governor Okpebholo’s election.
The appellate court upheld the May 15 judgement of the tribunal which validated the result of the election announced by the INEC.
The Justice Wilfred Kpochi-led three-member panel tribunal had dismissed petitions that were lodged against governor Okpebholo by the PDP and its candidate; the Action Alliance, AA, and its National Chairman, Adekunle Rufai Omoaje; as well as a case that was brought before it by the Accord Party, AP, and its own candidate, Dr. Bright Enabulele.
It will be recalled that INEC had declared that Okpebholo of the APC secured a total of 291, 667 votes to defeat his closet rivalry, Ighodalo of the PDP, who got a total of 247, 655 votes.
Dissatisfied with the result, the petitioners approached the tribunal, alleging that the election was not conducted in substantial compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.
In the petition marked: EPT/ED/GOV/02/2024, PDP and its candidate alleged that governor Okpebholo did not secure the highest number of lawful votes that were cast at the election.
It was equally the contention of the petitioners that INEC failed to serialise and pre-record some of the sensitive materials that were deployed for the poll, a situation they said aided the rigging of the election in favour of the APC and its candidate.
Specifically, PDP and its candidate alleged that there was wrong computation of results in 765 polling units in the state, even as they produced 19 witnesses that testified and tendered exhibits before the tribunal.