The Supreme Court, on Wednesday, upheld the elections of Ifeanyi Okowa, Abubakar Sani Bello, Darius Ishaku and Okezie Ikpeazu as the duly elected governors of Delta, Niger, Taraba and Abia States respectively.
The seven-member panel of Justices of the apex court, led by Justice Bode Rhode-Vivour, gave judgments in the appeals after parties adopted their briefs of arguments in the matter.
Delivering judgement in the appeal filed by the governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Delta State, Great Ogboru and his party, challenging Okowa’s election, Justice Celtus Nweze agreed with the lower courts that the appellants failed to prove the allegations in their petition and consequently dismissed the appeal.
Nweze said, the appeal was a share waste of the precious time of the court, saying there was no merit in the appeal and upheld the decisions of the two lower courts, which affirmed Okowa’s election.
A five-member panel of justices of the appellate court led by Justice Uzo Ndukwe-Anyanwu had, in a judgment, upheld the decision of the Delta State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which had earlier affirmed the election of Okowa of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), having dismissed the appeals challenging his election, for lacking in merit.
In the same vein, the apex court struck out an appeal challenging the election of Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger state in the March 2019 election.
The appeal filed by Umar Mohammed Nasco of the PDP was struck out by the apex court for lacking in merit.
Delivering judgement in the appeal, Justice Mary Uwani Abaji held that the Supreme Court will not tamper with the concurrent decisions of both the Court of Appeal and the state governorship election petition tribunal, which earlier dismissed the appeal against Gov. Bello’s election.
In the unanimous judgement, Justice Abaji held that the Court of Appeal was right in holding that the decision of the tribunal delivered outside the 180 days allowed by law was a nullity.
She further held that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal and consequently struck it out for want of jurisdiction.
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