An Appeal Court sitting in Abuja has nullified the entire election which
\nproduced Mr. Udom Emmanuel as the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, South South
\nNigeria.<\/p>\n
In a lead judgment on the parallel appeal filed by the respondent and
\ncandidate of the ruling APC, Chief Umana Umana to the first appeal by
\nGovernor Emmanuel of the opposition PDP, JusticeAdedotun Adefope Friday,
\nruled that the State\u2019s Election Petition Tribunal was wrong in its refusal
\nto comply with the section 179 (2) of the Constitution.<\/p>\n
The Appellate court held that it agreed with the evidence of the parallel
\nappellant\u2019s principal witnesses; video evidence with respect to the
\nmisconduct at by the State\u2019s collation agents.<\/p>\n
Giving the lapses, Justice Adefope held that the tribunal should have
\nruled that there was no collation; that votes were arbitrarily allocated
\nto the PDP candidate \u2013 the incumbent Governor Emmanuel, who was the
\nrespondent in the cross appeal.<\/p>\n
It would be recalled that the lower Tribunal about two months ago, ruled
\nthat the results of the 18 out 31 local government areas of Akwa Ibom be
\ncanceled and subsequently ordered for a rerun in the affected areas.<\/p>\n
The ruling was not satisfactory to both the petitioner (APC candidate) and
\nrespondent Governor Emmanuel at the lower Court, prompting the first
\nappeal by the PDP candidate and a cross appeal by Umana, the APC
\ncandidate.<\/p>\n
The Appellate Court maintained that the lower Tribunal was wrong in
\ncanceling only 18 out of the entire LGA\u2019s of the State. Justice Adefope
\nconsequently nullified the entire election in the 31 local government of
\nthe State<\/p>\n
Following the ruling, the court ordered the Independent National Electoral
\nCommission (INEC) to conduct a fresh election within 90 days.<\/p>\n
Earlier, the Appeal Court, ruling on the appeal filed by Governor Emmanuel
\nupheld the ruling of the lower Tribunal in its ruling which nullified
\nelection results in the 18 LGAs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An Appeal Court sitting in Abuja has nullified the entire election which produced Mr. Udom Emmanuel as the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, South South Nigeria. In a lead judgment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n