A’court affirms LP’s Attah as winner of Lagos reps seat

The appeal court sitting in Lagos has affirmed the election of Thaddeus Attah as the winner of the Eti-Osa house of representatives seat.

The three-member panel, on Thursday, dismissed the verdict of the national assembly election petitions tribunal that invalidated Attah’s victory and called for a supplementary poll.

BACKGROUND

In February, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared  Attah, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), as the winner of the Eti-Osa federal constituency seat.

Attah won the election with 24,075 votes to defeat Bankole Wellington of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), popularly known as Banky W, who scored 18,666 votes.

Babajide Obanikoro of the All Progressives Congress (APC) secured the third spot with 16,901 votes.

Dissatisfied with the result, Wellington and Obanikoro approached the tribunal to challenge Attah’s victory.

In September, the tribunal ordered INEC to conduct a supplementary poll in 32 polling units in the constituency within 90 days.

‘TRIBUNAL ERRED’

However, in its judgement, the appeal court ruled that the tribunal erred when it relied on the evidence of witnesses who were not party agents but only appeared to tender documents, which they did not author.

The panel held that the list of registered voters was not presented before the tribunal adding that it cannot conclude on the margin of votes on polling units where elections were held or cancelled.

The appeal court dismissed the order of the lower court that INEC should conduct supplementary elections in 32 polling units.