Tribunal upholds Fubara’s victory as Rivers governor, dismisses APC, LP’s petitions

The Rivers governorship election tribunal sitting in Abuja on Monday dismissed the petitions filed by candidates of the Labour Party  (LP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) against the victory of Simnalayi Fubara as governor of the state.

Beatrice Itubo of the LP and Tonye Cole of the APC, had approached the tribunal to contest the victory of Fubara, candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the March 18 election.

The three-member tribunal led by Cletus Emifonye threw out the petition by the LP candidate and the party, for lacking in merit and failing to prove their allegations.

Also, delivering judgement in the petitions filed by Cole and the APC, the panel dismissed their suits for lacking in merit.

Emifonye added that the petitioners also failed to prove their allegations of election rigging.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Fubara as the winner of the election after he polled 302,614 votes to defeat Cole who scored 95,274 votes.

Magnus Abe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) had 46, 981 votes, while Itubo came fourth with 22,224 votes.