Supreme court affirms Yahaya Bello as Kogi governor (updated)

The supreme court has affirmed Yahaya Bello as the duly elected governor of Kogi state

Delivering the judgment on Monday, Mary Uwani Abba-Aji, justice of the supreme court, dismissed the appeal filed by Musa Wada of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Natasha Akpoti of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Yahaya Bello, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the governorship election that held in November 2019.

However, his opponents challenged his victory in court.

In a split judgment of two-to-one to delivered on May 23, 2020, the tribunal affirmed Bello’s election.

The court of appeal also dismissed Wada’s appeal. Consequently, Wada filed an appeal before the apex court.

At the apex court, Jibril Okutepa, Wada’s counsel, argued that the election was invalid due to non-compliance with the provisions of the electoral act and that Bello was not elected by a majority of lawful votes cast.

Okutepa prayed the court to direct INEC to withdraw the certificate of return issued to the second respondent (Bello) and issue a fresh certificate of return to the appellant having scored the majority of lawful votes cast in the poll.

In the alternative, the appellant urged the court to nullify the election and order INEC to conduct a supplementary poll in 729 polling units across seven local government areas in the state.

In her submission, Akpoti argued that the election was marred by the snatching of ballot boxes, intimidation and gun violence while also accusing Edward Onoja, Kogi deputy governor, of giving false information of a fundamental nature as well as forging documents attached to his form CF 001 submitted to INEC in aid of his qualification for the position of the deputy governor.

The apex court, in its judgment, held that Wada failed to prove their allegations against the respondents and that “they failed to show the court why it should distort the decisions of the lower courts”.

It also said the witnesses called by Akpoti failed to prove that the respondents committed the criminal act or instigated agents to carry out the alleged offences.

The apex court also held that appellants did not provide particulars of forgery to support the claim of forgery against the deputy governor.