On Friday, the Supreme Court affirmed the victory of Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November 11, 2023, governorship election in Kogi.<\/p>\n
A five-member panel of the apex court ruled that the appeal filed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and its candidate, Muritala Ajaka, under case number SC\/CV\/654\/2024, was without merit and dismissed it.<\/p>\n
Justice Sadiq Umar authored and read the lead judgment, resolving all three issues raised in the appeal against the appellants.<\/p>\n
On July 11, a three-member panel of the Appeal Court, in a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Onyekachi Otisi, upheld the decision of the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.<\/p>\n
The appellate court found that the SDP and its candidate, Ajaka, failed to prove their allegations in the appeal beyond a reasonable doubt, as required by law.<\/p>\n
The court also dismissed appeals from the Action Alliance (AA) and its candidate, Olayinka Braimoh, as well as the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and its candidate, Dr. Abdullahi Bayawo, who contested Ododo\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n
Justice Otisi, while delivering the judgment on the SDP and Ajaka\u2019s appeal, concurred with the election petition tribunal that sat in Abuja.<\/p>\n
She stated that the tribunal was correct in excluding the testimony of the first prosecution witness (PW-1) presented by the petitioners, as that testimony was deemed documentary hearsay.<\/p>\n
Justice Otisi highlighted that witnesses, whether subpoenaed or ordinary, must submit their witness statements under oath, as mandated by law.<\/p>\n
She held that the petitioners\u2019 witnesses were incompetent because their statements did not accompany the original petition, in accordance with electoral laws.<\/p>\n
The judge agreed with the tribunal that there were inconsistencies in the appellants’ case.<\/p>\n
According to her, the allegation of forgery concerning documents submitted by Ododo to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is a pre-election matter, which falls under the purview of the Federal High Court, not the tribunal.<\/p>\n
Justice Otisi noted that the alleged act occurred before the November 11, 2023, governorship election and therefore could not be adjudicated by the lower tribunal.<\/p>\n
She also emphasized that any allegations of forgery must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n
Justice Otisi ultimately ruled all issues raised in the appeal against the appellants.<\/p>\n
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that on May 27, the tribunal had affirmed Governor Ododo’s victory in the November 11, 2023, Kogi governorship election.<\/p>\n
The three-member panel of justices, headed by Justice Ado Birnin-Kudu, dismissed the petition for lack of substance.<\/p>\n
The tribunal found that the SDP and Ajaka did not substantiate their allegations of over-voting and non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022.<\/p>\n
The panel, in a unanimous decision, concluded that all witness evidence presented was incompetent and rife with inconsistencies.<\/p>\n
It also agreed with the respondents’ submissions that the forgery allegations raised in the petition were pre-election issues, which should have been contested within 14 days of the documents being submitted to INEC.<\/p>\n
Kogi held its off-cycle election on November 11, 2023, where Ododo of the APC emerged victorious, defeating his closest rival, Ajaka of the SDP, by a significant margin.<\/p>\n
Dissatisfied with INEC\u2019s declaration of Ododo as the winner, Ajaka and his party took the electoral body, along with Ododo and the APC, to the tribunal as the first to third respondents, respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Friday, the Supreme Court affirmed the victory of Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November 11, 2023, governorship election in Kogi. A five-member panel of the apex court ruled that the appeal filed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and its candidate, Muritala Ajaka, under case number SC\/CV\/654\/2024, was without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":85511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-99395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/journalist101.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Supreme-Court.jpg?fit=600%2C450&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4LVjE-pR9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99395"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99397,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99395\/revisions\/99397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}