The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the petition of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Musa Wada, against the declaration of Governor Yahaya Bello of All Progressives Congress, APC as the winner of November 16 Kogi governorship election.
In the judgment delivered on their behalf by Justice Uwani Abba Aji, the seven man panel of the apex court led by Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mohammed Tanko held that the appeal is devoid of merit and is accordingly dismissed in the unanimous judgement.
The panel held that the petitioners abandoned their pleadings on their written briefs that the election was marred with irregularities at the lower courts.
The panel therefore ruled that having failed to prove their allegations with results from the election and failed to prove that the respondent did not win majority votes in the election. It also ruled that the petitioner failed to prove its claim of electoral malpractices by calling polling unit agents.
The panel held that the appellant only proved over-voting in 24 out of the 729 polling units were conducted.
The apex court also ruled that the forensic expert called by the appellants was not a qualified fingerprint expert.
